Toyota Gazoo Racing South Africa experienced what it described as its most difficult day of this year’s Dakar so far,…
Toyota Gazoo Racing South Africa experienced what it described as its most difficult day of this year’s Dakar so far, with the first of the marathon stages to and from Alula.
Taking place over 452 km, without any overnight servicing as per the marathon regulations, the fourth stage saw numerous crews being plagued punctures, one of the worst hit being Guy Botterill and Oriol Mena, who also struggled with navigation and copped a 15 minute penalty for also missing a waypoint.
Having started the stage 17th overall, the #213 GR Hilux IMT Evo crew finished the stage down in 37th place, which also drops them to 22nd in the overall classification.
Starting 15th, the 240 Hilux of João Ferreira and Filipe Palmeiro endured similar frustration after two punctures saw them finishing 17th and dropping two places in the overall standings.
“Two early punctures meant we had to drive super carefully and super slowly. It’s tough racing and I’m gutted for the team, but we’re still alive for the second part of the Marathon and we’ll reassess our strategy after tomorrow,” Ferreira said.
Fairing the best of the three-car team, reigning national Rally-Raid champions Saood Variawa and Francois Cazalet completed the stage in ninth place overall despite picking-up a puncture mid-stage.
Having started the day ninth, the #213 Hilux now lies sixth heading into the fourth stage.
“We were going quite well at the start and passed a lot of guys that started ahead of us. Then we hit the rocky section and got two punctures close together,” Variawa said.
“After that we still had another 260 kilometres to go, most of it on rocks, so we had to be quite cautious. It could have been worse, but we’ll see how the overall looks”.
After domination of Ford on stage 3, stage four saw South Africa’s Henk Lategan an Brett Cummings now only win the stage, but jump to the lead of the event by a mere three minutes 55 seconds from the Dacia Sandrider of Nasser Al-Attiyah/Fabian Larquin, who also finished the stage second.
Privateer Polish teammates Marek Goczal/Maciej Marton and Eryk Gozal/Szymon Gospodarczyk – both in Hiluxs- finished third and fourth on stage, with fifth place going to Sébastien Loeb/Edouard Boulanger in the second Dacia Sunrider.
The marathon stage continues with the fifth stretching 414 km before finishing at the bivouac in Hail.
ALSO READ: Dakar shows teeth to Toyota Gazoo Racing South Africa on stage 2
