Day 5

Car 2 Delivers Impressive Performance. Moves Up to 13th Overall in Accumulated Rankings.
The course to Tucumán is shortened due to safety concerns.
On January 9, Dakar Rally 2014 took the contestants from Chilecito to San Miguel de Tucumán, Argentina. Again, the SS for this day was long and featured a neutral zone midway. The racers were scheduled to travel on a 154km liaison route from their bivouac in Chilecito, race on the first half of the SS on a 211km mountain route, then proceed on to a 111km neutral zone, and finally race on the 205km course of the second half of the SS. However, due to temperatures hitting 47ºC, organizers canceled the entire second half of the SS for the Bikes category.

The second half of the SS for the Cars and Trucks categories was shortened to 107km with the finish line pulled back to checkpoint 1 (CP 1) for the same reason and due to concerns that their arrival at the bivouac could be considerably delayed otherwise. The first half of the SS featured a short sand dune section and an off-road section with rough sandy terrain. The second half took the contestants through grueling hill climbing sections reaching elevations approaching 3000m. As such, this SS proved to be a challenging one for all teams.