Extreme Dakar is lead by the weather, the teams move to Salta

15.1.2018

Extreme follows an extreme. This year`s Dakar Rally shows, why it is considered to be the world`s most difficult distant competition. And the organizers really tried. There is no resting stage, technique and people suffer, they get nothing for free and this is what the teams actually like. Also the 8th stage on Sunday was one of the most difficult. The trucks from north-Bohemian MKR Technology dealt with the problems successfully, though they lost some time.

“This year`s Dakar shows, how difficult it can be in comparison with previous years. I always though, what kind of extreme we experienced and the next year is even worse. When I spoke with Dakar legend, Stephan Peterhansel, current leader in car class, he said he had experienced here the most difficult dunes of his entire carrier of off-road races. For us it is a huge experience and it is important to keep going and fighting; every issue is actually a huge challenge and a step towards improvement”, noticed Mario Kress, leading designer of MKR technology team and then he added: “I admit that it is wonderful to watch other trucks, especially kamazes, where you can see they have twenty years of advantage in development. But even they struggle with technique. It is not easy for anyone. Every day is different, but the pilots are doing a great job and together we will do our best to get both trucks to the finish.”

During 8^th stage from Uyuni to Tupiza the teams crossed the line of four and half thousand meters altitude. In total they went 561 kilometers, of those 381 kilometers were timed. The pilots of north Bohemian Renault were in the top ten up to the last-but-one way point. Young Janus van Kasteren that is for the first time on Dakar, went for wonderful sixth place, but then he had a technical problem with steering and by that he was stopped for two hours. Russian Sotnikov won the stage, Gerd Huzink was classified as seventeenth and van Kasteren as twenty-first.

In overall ranking the 8^th stage meant a mild decrease. Huzink is twelfth, van Kasteren sixteenth. Russian pilot Eduard Nikolajev is still in the lead.

The situation in South America is governed by the weather now. “It started to rain heavily. The rains flooded the bivouac during the night and there are problems also on the route, so the 9^th stage was cancelled and we move straight to Salta to next start,” informed Mario Kress.