Dakar rider caught making secret tyre change… by Google!

[Bob]

Top Dakar challenger, Marc Coma, has been protesting his innocence, after he was handed a six-hour penalty for an illegal tyre change, caught on images recorded on search engine Google.

Moto course director Marc Ducrocq said "The stop he made behind a house and the images we have thanks to Google which show exactly where he stopped and for how long, coupled with today's high-definition images of the tyre. These images are clear, the tyre did not do 200km. The decision has therefore been taken by the organisers to hand him a six-hour penalty.”

[hayd3n]

the internet does funny things

[NordieBoy]

Google just showed it was a house he stopped behind when they overlaid the gps track.

Last year the top riders were all using open exhausts once they'd done the noise tests.
Others protested but it was ignored.

Jonah Street mentioned they had the same top speed as him for the first stage and from then on they just blew past him.

[KiWiP]

Has anyone found the images? I've just had a good trawl but can find nothing. It's really annoying when the organisers say

Noting "the stop he made behind a house and the images we have thanks to Google which show exactly where he stopped and for how long, coupled with today's high definition images of the tyre .. these images are clear, the tyre did not do 200km," said moto course director Marc Ducrocq.

then don't provide the images/evidence.

[NordieBoy]

The only images are of Coma & Despres tyres after 160km.
They looked at Google Earth and where the GPS tracker showed he stopped was behind a house.
There was also no official protest. Despres just said to a TV crew to look at Coma's tyre and that it looked too fresh and it all snowballed from there.