Toyota Gazoo Racing South Africa completed the first week of this year’s Dakar Rally with all three of its GR Hilux IMT Evos ensconced in the top 20.
Resting on a high
Finishing the 326 km sixth stage from Hail to the Saudi Arabian capital Riyadh in fifth place, João Ferreira and Filipe Palmeiro in the #240 Hilux now place 12th overall after having started 14th.
“It was a good, very long day, with much more dunes than we were expecting. But we finished the stage quite well and the car performed very, very well. Now it’s time to rest,” Ferreira said.
Teammates and reigning national Rally-Raid champions, Saood Variawa and Francois Cazalet, completed the stage in 14th, but still moved up a single notch to 11th in the overall standings despite experiencing fuel management problems towards the end.
With this, the #213 Hilux goes into the second week as the best placed of the trio Toyota Gazoo Racing South Africa entries.
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“We had a good pace at the start. But in the last 40 kilometres we had to save fuel, otherwise we wouldn’t have made it to the end. It wasn’t the best stage for us, but the car is in one piece and that’s the most important thing,” Variawa said.
After a torrid fifth stage – the final of the two-part marathon run – Guy Botterill and Oriol Mena won back significant ground after completing the 326 km in ninth place overall.
Having started down in 20th, the #218 Hilux moves up to 17th overall .
“Good day for us in the dunes, really happy with our performance. The car is in good condition and it was really cool to get some nice dunes under our belt. Now we head into the Rest Day and get ready for the second week,” Botterill said.
New leader
In the overall standings, former winners, Nasser Al-Attiyah and Fabian Larquin, lead a 1-2 result for the Dacia Sandriders ahead of teammates, nine-times World Rally Championship (WRC) champion Sébastien Loeb and co-driver Edouard Boulanger.
Placing above Ferreira and Palmeiro as part of two other Hiluxes in the top five were Seth Quintero and Andrew Short, and former motorcycle category winner Toby Price and Armand Monleon.
After two straight stage victories, a 12th place finish saw Henk Lategan and Brent Cummings swap places with Al-Attiyah and Larquin to now place second overall with a deficit of six min 10 sec.
Overall standings
- Nasser Al-Attiyah/Fabian Larquin
– Dacia Sandriders
– 24h 18′ 29′ - Henk Lategan/Brett Cummings
– Toyota Hilux
– 24h 24′ 39” - Nani Roma/Alex Haro
– Ford Raptor
– 20h 43′ 43” - Carlos Sainz/Lucas Cruz
– Ford Raptor
– 24h 30′ 18” - Mattias Ekstrom/Emil Bergkvist
– Ford Raptor
– 24h 30′ 40′ - Sébastien Loeb/Edouard Boulanger
– Dacia Sandriders
– 24h 36′ 05” - Mitch Guthrie/Kellon Walch
– Ford Raptor
– 24h 40′ 18” - Mathieu Serradori/Loïc Minaudier
– Century CR7
– 24h 41′ 58” - Eryk Gozal/Szymon Gospodarczyk
– Toyota Hilux
– 24h 43′ 29” - Lucas Moreas/Dennis Zenz
– Dacia Sandriders
– 24h 45′ 15”
Rest time
Saturday sees crews take a break as apart of the traditional rest day before resuming action on Sunday with a 462 km route from Riyadh to Wadi Ad Dawasir.
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