De Baar finished the penultimate stage in the top ten

14.1.2022

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Top ten again! The North Bohemian truck from the MKR Technology workshop in the 11th stage of Dakar made it again into the elite ten. The famous long-distance rally goes to the absolute final. After the penultimate stage of the 44th year, thanks to this, the pilot Pascal de Baar managed to jump in the overall ranking by two places.

The finish line is very close now. The crews of this year's Dakar have passed the penultimate race test, which, thanks to the organizers' forecasts and its difficulty, could still have shuffled the ranking. But nothing like that happened. The pilot of the Renault from the MKR Technology workshop by Mario Kress successfully finished among the best. Pascal de Baar finished the 11th stage in the elite ten. He lost only fifteen seconds to his former colleague, the ninth compatriot Martin van den Brink. "Today was definitely one of the most beautiful stages. It was also virtually the last chance to do something with the overall standings and everyone knew it. Everyone pushed and everyone pushed hard. We decided that we would simply go for it and make the elite ten," Pascal de Baar described the determination of his crew, but after yesterday Gert Huzink's accident he drove the beginning of this stage rather carefully. "We respected the first series of dunes. We didn't want to take any chances, but when we almost stranded there thanks to this style of driving, we decided to push harder and we returned to the top ten," smiled the tenth Pascal de Baar.

The stage was dominated by Russian Kamaz trucks. Nikolayev won the penultimate test, ahead of Karginov and Sotnikov. However, the first hybrid truck in history of Dakar, did not part, as Gert Huzink did not start the stage after yesterday's accident and the repair of the severely damaged chassis was not an option. The Dutch team Riwald Dakar was thus represented by the tenth Pascal de Baar, who moved up to the fourteenth place in the overall standings. He has managed to improve by ten positions since the fourth stage, when he fell down to the 24th place due to a damaged steering arm. "He did not give up and fought, as did everyone on the team. Hats off. The Dakar was unfolding as we have imagined, but it is how it is. Now there is the last stage, after which we can say that we are at least a lot more experienced again, "said Mario Kress, lead designer of the MKR Technology team.

The last 12th stage from Bisha to Jeddah is almost seven hundred kilometers long. The final special section is slightly over one hundred and sixty kilometers and Russian Sotnikov is in the lead.

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