With a third stage victory on the Dakar 2013, Francisco ‘Chaleco’ Lopez provided a worthy celebration of the rally’s arrival in his native Chile and moved into position behind the French trio of Olivier Pain, Cyril Despres and David Casteu in the general standings.

The Dakar has well and truly arrived in Chile. Although the riders and drivers already crossed the border yesterday evening from Peru on the way to the bivouac in Arica, they undertook their first special stage this year on Chilean soil.

This is the sort of alert that sets the national idol’s senses buzzing. On home soil, even before reaching the Atacama Desert, Chaleco triumphed on the special stage sending a warning signal about his intentions for the rally’s finish in his home capital in a dozen days.

In the meantime, his intermediate results are already impressive, especially for a rider who did not have a bike following the disappearance of the Bordone set-up one month before the start.

With the KTM that he is riding for the Tamarugal team, Lopez has already won no less than half of the special stages on this edition so far, raising his total of stage victories on the Dakar to nine, including five in his native Chile.

“The first part of the special went very well, but on the second section, the engine lost a fair bit of power and I started wondering whether it was a fuel problem or due to the altitude,” Lopez said. “I don’t know, but I should find out when I get to the bivouac.”

Today, it was Paulo Gonçalves who seemed to be heading for triumph, after having reached all the intermediate time check-points in the lead. However, the Portuguese rider was hampered by technical problems robbing him of the stage win.

Chaleco, who had three other KTMs hot on his heels ridden by Faria, Despres and newcomer Kurt Caselli, moves up two places in the general standings and is now in a position to barge into the 100 percent French trio, which still lead the rally.

The race order and gaps have been modified by the stage finishing in Calama. Cyril Despres is now 2:22 behind Pain, whilst Casteu drops down a place, trailing the leader by 4:48. As for Lopez, he is only 6:06 behind Pain.

Probably inspired by his countryman, Ignacio Casale also flew the Chilean flag over Calama by achieving the best time in the quad race in front of Marcos Patronelli.

Following the problems encountered by Sebastian Husseini yesterday, the young Chilean gained time by beating Marcos by 6 minutes today, but there is plenty more effort to be made if he really wants to worry the favourite, because the gap still amounts to 1 hour and 11 minutes.

Of the Australians, Yamaha’s Rod Faggotter remains the top ranked in 17th overall after Stage 6 where he finished 18th.

Dakar debutant Ben Grabham was the big mover today, the HSE Motorex KTM Desert Racing Team rider finished 12th in the stage, hoisting himself up another four positions to 22nd overall.

“A good day today, I felt comfortable and pushed a bit harder while still looking after the bike and myself,” Grabham noted. “There was a faster section with some dunes and I passed a few guys while building confidence with the bike and navigation each day.

“I’m looking forward to the longer, harder stages coming up and the marathon stage tomorrow.”

Warren Strange sits 30th at this point, while Todd Smith is 49th on another Honda and Simon Pavey has climbed to 71st.

According to his Monster Energy Husqvarna team, Matt Fish is managing to finish the race and solve same technical problems on his bike in order to start again tomorrow.

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