OREANDA-NEWS. Yesterday was the official day of rest at the Dakar-2017, and recently it has became known today that the seventh special stage of the rally-marathon between the points of La Paz and Uyuni was halved because of the rains in Bolivia.

Initially, the section to be scored should have been 322 km, but it turned out to be impossible to pass it because of the rain, and the organizers decided to change the distance, according to Autosport. Earlier, due to the rain the fifth stage was shortened twice, and the sixth stage was canceled. Instead of the bivouac in Oruro, the participants of the rally-raid came to La Paz.

However, it was "wet" there too. Xavier Panseri, navigator of Mini racer Mohamed Abu Issa, even expressed his dissatisfaction with poor weather conditions at the bivouac in Bolivia on the day of rest at the Dakar. Because of the rain the bivouac was awash. "Just awful! There's dirt everywhere. We can not complain about the organizers, but everyone knows that it rains in Bolivia very often, so it's unreasonable to arrange a day of rest there. This is not good for everyone, but especially for the mechanics," Panseri said.

He is supported by member of the Dakar in the truck standings Sergey Vyazovich. "Before the start we had paniced that the stage in Bolivia would be canceled because of the drought and lack of drinking water, but now we're standing knee-deep in water because of heavy wind and rains. Our rescue vehicles were unable to drive onto the bivouac yesterday - it was a living hell. All cars skidded, it rained cats and dogs, everything was done in the dark. As a result, everybody was sent out of the bivouac and the trucks were put on the pavement along the road," Vyazovich was quoted by the press service of MAZ-SPORTavto.