Dakar 2017 Stage 3 Nissan Update!

Day 3...a day in which the event's favorite, Nasser al-Attiyah crashed out ripping a wheel off his Toyota, no one could say it was easy to get through the stage.  The stage involved some serious climbing to over 15,000 feet, serious navigation requirements, and rougher terrain...perhaps today was the day the real race started.

#315 of Emiliano Spataro and his VK56 Renault Duster appear to have gotten off the starting line and through some of the initial checkpoints but there is currently no record of them having finished the stage with currently only 53 of the 79 daily starters finishing so far some six hours after the fastest drivers of the day completed the stage.  Indeed in the last half hour, Spataro posted via Twitter the following "We are out of the Dakar, a failure in the design of the chassis of the new Duster us leaves without possibilities of follow... a day very sad..."  Sounds like a dangerous deformation of the cage or structure of the vehicle?  Regardless...that puts them out and one Duster remaining--at least it wasn't the fault of the Nissan engine!

#334 of Facundo Ardusso and the sister Duster seemed not to have the same problems, finishing the stage in 27th near two hours behind the leaders.  

#337 of Ronald Basso's Navara finished 38th on the day, three hours back of the day's winner.

#377 of Carlos Aguero and his Navara have also not finished yet but with no Twitter feed or social media postings, it is unknown if he has had to withdraw or not.

The overall standings of the #334 and #337 are unknown at the moment as the Dakar site's standings are not updated/available at this point...

So it looks like 50% of Nissan related competitors are out after three stages...ah well...so it goes...if it was easy....