Guy Botterill bounces back to win stage two

Marathon Stage Pt 1 – 357km, liaison 269km

Guy Botterill and Dennis Murphy bounced back from an iffy opening stage to win the first leg of the Marathon stage, heading a Toyota Gazoo Racing South Africa one-two.

The result marks the third different South African winner in as many days, following Gareth Woolridge in the prologue and Henk Lategan on stage one.

Starting 41^st on the road, Botterill welded his foot to the floorboards of his Hilux Ultimate T1+ but was under significant pressure from Saood Variawa and Francois Cazalet who shaded them every step of the way; the lead was just three seconds at the 155km mark, before the 19-year-old took the lead at the 212km mark.

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At the 266km point, Variawa had eased his lead to 36”.

Guillaume de Mévius trailed the Toyota pair by 1′11″, with Nasser Al Attiyah a further 27 seconds back at +1′38”.

343 km into the special, just 15km from the finish, Saood Variawa relinquished his lead to de Mévius by 1’01”! The Belgian added another 5 seconds in the remainder of the stage, bringing their tally to 1’06” over the South African and his Hilux.

However, de Mévius was handed a 2-minute penalty for a missed waypoint, dropping the Mini driver to third on the day.

Nasser Al Attiyah was slapped with a 15-minute penalty for missing a waypoint. His teammate at Dacia, Sébastien Loeb, and the Ford M-Sport factory driver Carlos Sainz were each handed a 1-minute penalty for speeding.

In the overall standings, Seth Quintero was the new overall race leader thanks to the penalty picked up by Al Attiyah. The American took over from Henk Lategan, who dropped to fifth, 2′09″ back after opening the road all day.

Brian Baragwanath, at the wheel of his Century Racing CR-7, moved up to second overall, just 13 seconds behind. Lucas Moraes rounded out the provisional podium at 1′31″.

Mathieu Serradori, who had been running inside the top 5 of the special, has exited the stage via the road section around km 255, likely due to a technical issue. João Ferreira, who had been setting the pace early on yesterday, is out of the special. The Portuguese driver was forced to retire at kilometre 168, his Mini sidelined by a broken differential mount.

Daniel Sanders and Luciano Benavides cranked it up in the final stretch in the GP bike fight.. The Argentinian slashed his deficit by half and crossed the line just 32 seconds behind the Australian. The Honda duo of Ricky Brabec and Adrien Van Beveren held their ground during the late charge.

Brabec finished with a gap of 4′46″, while the Frenchman trailed by 6′48″. Sanders claimed the stage win, his second after the prologue, and snatched the overall lead. His teammate Benavides moved up to second, 1′11″ back. Brabec hung on to third overall, though he dropped two minutes and now sits 3′05″ adrift. Van Beveren is bumped to fourth, 4′54″ off the pace.

Spare a thought for the competitors who are sleeping in tents in the Marathon bivouac with temperatures hovering around 2°C, excluding the wind chill factor…