On January 2, Stage1
Asuncion (Paraguay) - Resistencia (Argentina) Liaison: 70km, SS: 39km, Liaison: 345kmTotal: 454km

On Jan. 2, contestants of Dakar Rally 2017 raced a 39km timed segment on their way from Asuncion, Paraguay to Resistencia, Argentina. The SS was set on flat gravel terrain to the east of Asuncion. This was the first SS to be set in Paraguay, and while it was short, teams had to be on their toes as they faced winding forest roads, extensive dust, and river crossings.

HINO TEAM SUGAWARA crews piloting their HINO500 Series trucks in this SS maintained their cool to the finish line. Car 2 crewed by Teruhito Sugawara and Hiroyuki Sugiura finished 19th overall and first in the Under 10-litre Class. The Car 1 crew, Yoshimasa Sugawara and Mitsugu Takahashi, finished 40th overall and 3rd in the Class.※

After the SS, contestants crossed the border into Argentina on a liaison segment, and headed for their first bivouac at Resistencia. The bivouac was set up on a local racing circuit where Car 2 arrived at around 7:30pm, and Car 1 at around 8:00pm. The mechanics who had been on stand-by wasted no time to inspect the trucks.

No problems were found with the trucks, and the mechanics just had some minor servicing to do including fine adjustments to Car 1's suspensions. On Jan. 3, contestants will be traveling westward within the borders of Argentina and race a 284km SS on their way from Resistencia to San Miguel de Tucuman.

Yoshimasa Sugawara:I couldn't wait to start. There was a river crossing along the way, probably due to the rain, and we saw a truck that was stuck there. We will be facing a longer SS tomorrow so we will stay alert.

Mitsugu Takahashi:I wasn't going to cut myself any slack for making mistakes like I did last year, my first time in this rally, so I'm approaching this with renewed focus and concentration. The course today was on a one track road, but there were a lot of pot holes and we saw many cautionary instructions.

Teruhito Sugawara:We've been making great advances on our truck, and I'm happy that this rally that we've been looking so much forward to have finally started. We finished three minutes behind the top finisher on the 39km SS today, so that was a pretty solid performance. We might even be able to shorten this time difference in the longer stages that are upcoming.

Hiroyuki Sugiura:Perhaps due to the fact that the truck is faster, it was hectic reading out the instruction sheet to the point that I fell behind a couple of times. I was also pleasantly surprised at the truck's improved riding comfort.

※These standings are all preliminary at the time of this writing as organizers had not yet set up their clocking HQ at the bivouac in Resistencia. No definite standing figures are available for the Under 10-litre Class either as these have not been shown on the results chart.