Crisis comes with the sixth stage

11.1.2020

Only bad news are coming to MKR Technology's tent. The sixth day of the Dakar Rally can be easily described as a disaster. However, the crews of four North Bohemian Renaults have not given up, and despite all the misfortunes, they have all arrived in the bivouac in Riyadh, where they spend a well-deserved and much sought free day.

The news that kicked off the sixth day of racing did not sound very good. On-board technician of the first ever hybrid in the famous rally, Martin Roesing, had had to leave the competition prematurely. In the previous day, his truck jerked unpredictably on a dune descent, and the technician heard a "click" in his back. Despite the great pain, the truck led by Gert Huzink slowly reached the finish line. Initially, the situation did not seem to be so serious. “But in the bivouac, doctors looked at Martin and the result scared us. One broken vertebra, other are cracked. Gert wanted to withdraw from the competition immediately, but eventually the crew decided to continue after a longer consideration and will try to ride the Dakar without Martin, so that the hybrid can be tested more in the race, which is very valuable for its development. It is difficult to simulate the real conditions of Dakar, and this ultimately led to the decision to continue. Martin immediately returned to Holland. We are all with him and we believe his recovery will go smoothly,” said Mario Kress, head of the MKR Technology design team.

In the end, the closely watched hybrid eventually started the stage 6 with a two-man crew - pilot Gert Huzink and the navigator Rob Buurs. “Unfortunately, the rules do not allow to replace a crew member. In just two people, it is significantly harder. On top of that, without the on-board technician, you must drive very carefully to avoid any troubles. Not only changing a tire is more difficult. The whole truck is simply mad for three people. The technician also works with tire pressure in the dunes. It will be hard” commented Mario Kress.

Huzink eventually coped with almost four hundred and eighty timed kilometers. He lost an hour to the winner, Karginov, and finished on sixteenth position. Just a few minutes behind him, the "fireman" Richard de Groot finished seventeenth. Pascal de Baar was very unlucky at the beginning, his rear differential failed, so he drove the entire stage with front-wheel drive only. He reached the finish, but for not passing through the checkpoints, he got a sixty-six-hour penalty and tumbled from his eighth place. Martin van den Brink was ranked 12th and was the best in the stage out of the quartet. However, he had a very sad accident at the end of the stage, when he had a collision with the car of the Czech pilot Tomáš Ouředníček. van den Brink started to dodge Ouředníček’s car who was on the track and started to move away, but as but when the Dutch pilot was about to return to the track, he suddenly in his way and dodged, but when the Dutch pilot wanted to return to it, Ouředníček suddenly changed direction and the speeding truck hit his front part. “This was a very bad day. Personally, I am very sorry that we had a collision with Tomáš. It was bad coincidence. But both of us faced this as real men, explained everything in the bivouac and together we repair everything during the day off,” said Mario Kress with a characteristic determination.

At the top, there was no change in the overall ranking. Andrey Karginov strengthen his lead with a victory in the stage. Martin van den Brink is the best north bohemian rider and is classified as twelfth.

The crews will spend the well-deserved free day in a bivouac in Riyadh. On Sunday, Dakar will enter its second half. The race will proceed with Stage 7 to Wadi Al Dawasir. Once again, it will be entirely in the sand and in the dunes and is seven hundred and forty kilometers long. The timed section will be almost five hundred and fifty kilometers.