South Africans Henk & Brett’s Hilux still ahead, but only just
Brazilian Lucas Moraes and Armand Monleon and their Gazoo Hilux emerged as the winners of a chaotic, confusing and controversial Dakar car stage around Al Duwadimi in the Arabian Desert on Saturday. Most of the leaders got lost after a wrong road book instruction, with the segment around the error later neutralised, after which Ford duo Mattias Ekström and Mitch Guthrie wound up second and third.
South African overall leaders Henk Lategan and Brett Cummings’ Gazoo Hilux lost time in the final sector to see Saudi home hero Yazeed Al-Rajhi and Timo Gottschalk’s Hilux close to within 21 seconds, with Ekstrom ten minutes adrift in third. The bike race ran without any problems on a separate route as overall top three, Daniel Sanders’ KTM and Honda duo Tosha Schareina and Adrien van Beveren came home in the same order.
Before the day even started, there was more pain for the South African contingent. Dakar legend Giniel de Villiers was forced to withdraw his Gazoo Hilux after navigator Dirk von Zitzewitz suffered neck pain. The SA-built WCT Amarok crewed by Daniel Schröder and Henry Köhne, and Zimbabwean William Battershill and his SA navigator Stuart Gregory’s Century CR6 also failed to start the day, to join bikers Ross Branch and Bradley Cox in retirement. French legend crew Guerlain Chicherit and Alex Winocq’s Mini also rolled out on Saturday.
Sunday started reasonably enough despite slight changes to the route to account for the wet weather and deployment of safety helicopters. Third overall, Swedes Ekstrom and Bergkvist led race leaders Lategan and Cummings, and their teammate Moraes at the first waypoint. Moraes was ahead of French duo, Mathieu Serradori and Loic Minaudier Century CR7 and US Ford Raptor pair Mitch Guthrie and Kellon Walch and Ekstrom, with Lategan eighth from fourth overall Al Attiyah and Boulanger’s Dacia and second men Al-Rajhi and Gottschalk’s Hilux at 138 km.
The top four overall and several others in the bunch opening the road then appeared to plummet down the order by the next 183 km waypoint. Lategan sat 26th, Ekstrom 34th, Al Rajhi 37th and Al Attiyah, who had also stopped in that section, 42nd.. Moraes still led from Brazilian Gastaldi and Metge in their Century, Cristina Gutiérrez and Pablo Moreno’s Dacia and Serradori.
Not much changed through the next few waypoints, when race organisers announced that an incorrect road note at 158 km had caused several cars to lose their bearings. A 20 km segment around that point would be delimited at the finish to erase any gains or losses made there. All well and good, but that plunged the real situation into mystery and immediately drew complaints about cars that would gain an unfair advantage if they had other trouble in that segment.
On to the finish, Moraes duly powered out of the stage to win without any correction. Ekstrom, Guthrie, Al Attiyah, Seth Quintero and Dennis Zenz’s Gazoo Hilux, Gutierrez and Al Rajhi however all shot up the order. But what of leader Lategan? He duly arrived in fifteenth after losing some ten minutes in the final section as he ended up opening the road. Expect the results to change again as they certainly all remained provisional at the time of writing.
Of other South African interest, Saood Variawa and Francois Cazalet’s Gazoo Hilux ended seventh; Gastaldi, Serradori and SA duo Baragwanath and Cremer’s Centurys were provisionally 11th, 13th and 18th and Toyota water carriers Botterill and Cremer 25th ahead of the best of the Red-Lined crews, lady racer Aliyyah Koloc and Sebastien Delaunay’s REVO+. All of which has served to tighten up the top four overall for now, with Lategan, Al Rajhi, Ekstrom and Al Attiyah covered by all of 21 minutes with five days of racing still to come. Serradori sits sixth, Baragwanath tenth, Variawa 21st, Koloc 23rd and Botterill provisionally 25th overall.
The Bike race was all about overall top two, Aussie leader Daniel Sanders’ Red Bull KTM Spaniard Tosha Schareina’s second placed Monster Honda. The two traded the lead throughout the day, Sanders relying on pure pace while Schareina harvested time through Dakar’s crazy lead group bonus system. Surely simply allowing the top ten to choose their starting order WRC style, would deliver far closer, far more realistic racing?
Sanders duly won the day by four minutes, two of which were for Schareina, with third man, Adrien van Beveren and his Honda benefiting five minutes bonus time to beat Luciano Benavides’ KTM to third. Chilean José Ignacio Cornejo was fifth for Hero Moto from Spain’s Lorenzo Santolino’s Sherco. South African Aaron Mare enjoyed another solid day in 13th while amateur rookie compatriots Dwain Barnard rode 51st and Willem Avenant 95th.
So Sanders extended his race-long lead over Schareina to fifteen minutes with van Beveren third from Ricky Brabec’s Honda, Benavides and Florimo. Mare was provisionally 23rd, Barnard 50th and Avenant 90th.
Elsewhere, Argentine duo Nicolás Cavigliasso and Valentina Pertegarini’s Taurus led the T3 Challenger race with Corbin Leaverton and South African lady Taye Perry’s similar machine and T3 Stellenbosch lass, Puck Klaassen and Charan Moore’s GRally seventh and eighth. Brock Heger and Max Eddy’s Loeb RZR led French pair Xavier De Soultrait and Martin Bonnet’s Polaris and Chilean Francisco Lopez Contardo and JP Latrach in a Can-Am in the T4 Side by Sides.
Martin Macik, David Svanda and Frantisek Tomasek’s MM led Mitchel van den Brink, Jarno van de Pol and Moises Torrallardona in an Iveco in the Trucks. Monday’s Dakar stage travels 428 km of mostly sand tracks with a dune sting in the tail to Riyadh. Let’s see what drama this one delivers!