De Baar again in the top ten, Huzink just outside top 10

12.1.2022

A truck built in the North Bohemian workshop of the MKR Technology of Mario Kress team finished in the elite ten again. Pascal de Baar finished tenth with his Renault in the 9th stage and Gert Huzink's hybrid special finished just two places behind him.

During the 9th stage, which ran on a nearly 500-kilometer loop around Wadi Ad-Dawasir, the crews passed over dunes, plateaus and canyons. The timed special section was less than three hundred kilometers long. "It was very fast stage, and the speed was increasing all the time. In places it was very dangerous, especially when the sun was high and no shadow was visible in the dunes. It distorts your vision a one can overlook something. As a result, we jumped over one of the dunes very badly and the truck got an incredible blow. We all thought we had our backs in two, but the technology lasted and we continued successfully to the finish line at full speed," the tenth Pascal de Baar was satisfied during as he finished less then twelve minutes slower than Nikolaev.

A quarter of an hour behind the first Kamaz, Gert Huzink's hybrid special truck passed the finish line. He was not very satisfied with his twelfth position. "We lost in the beginning looking for a waypoint and then we drove a lot in the dust. Otherwise, the stage was very nice and we surfed the dunes beautifully. It was a pity for the initial loss, because even though the truck was perfectly prepared, it was practically impossible to get higher in the ranking in today's stage," said Gert Huzink, disappointed.

However, there are no changes in the overall ranking after Tuesday's 9th stage. Russian Sotnikov leads the overall classification of trucks with Kamaz, Gert Huzink is fourteenth with the hybrid Renault and his colleague from the Riwald Dakar team Pascal de Baar is eighteenth.

Wednesday's 10th stage from Wadi Ad Dawasir to Bishi, almost seven hundred and sixty kilometers long, will be a scenic route. The timed section will be three hundred and seventy five kilometers, but the crews will certainly enjoy the richness of landscapes and colors, but due to the number of typical intersections, navigation will crucial.