Kozlovský is shrinking after a jumpy stage

11.1.2021

After a day off, this year's Dakar Rally has entered its second half. On Sunday's 7th stage, first part of a marathon stage started. In this part, the crews for two stages will be on their own – without their technicians.

"The day off is quite a misnomer. There was no race stage, but otherwise the teams were very busy. We started early on Saturday morning and ended on Sunday very much after midnight. We made a complete big service, springs, turbos, tires, cracks were welded, the brakes were changed," Mario Kress, head of the MKR Technology design team, mentioned just part of the duties that technicians had to work on over the weekend not only thanks to ubiquitous sand in the past week. Therefore, everyone tried to prepare the trucks as best they could for the second part of this long-distance race.

It started on Sunday with a very tough marathon stage, when the competitors had to do without the help of their technicians. In addition, the 7th stage was the second longest of this year, not only with its total distance, but also with its timed section. In total, the crews on the route from Ha'il to Sakaka had to cover a total of seven hundred and forty kilometers. The timed section measured four hundred and fifty kilometers. While the pilot of the red Renault, Martin van den Brink, with the on-board technician Daniel Kozlovský from Roudnice, crossed the finish line in the seventh fastest time, the crews of the two white Renault trucks of the Riwald Dakar team were facing technical problems. "A flat tire tore off our main fender switch, so we had to fix it on the spot. We lost some fifty minutes," said pilot Pascal de Baar. He was aware that this is simply the Dakar, but he was sorry for his colleague Gert Huzink, who has stopped on the route with a problem with engine oil pressure. Pascal de Baar finally finished the sixteenth stage, but Huzink’s future in the race is highly uncertain.

Again, stage was dominated by Russian Sotnikov, who extended his lead again. Martin van den Brink maintained his seventh place, Pascal de Baar held eleventh place. "Today was terrible. After the rain, the sand was very wet for the first eighty kilometers, and then came the sharp stones on which we were jumping and it hurt. I feel like I'm coming home about one inch smaller. At the end of the stage, annoying bumps were waiting for us. For me, it was emotionally one of the worst stages, but fortunately we managed it in terms of machinery. Martin is driving focused and keeping pace," said Daniel Kozlovský, onboard technician of the Mammoet Rallysport team.

Monday's 8th stage will take the crews from Sakaka to Neomo, where they will meet their team of technicians. Until then, they will have to cover over seven hundred kilometers, including three hundred and seventy-five kilometers long special section.