MKR trucks closed the Dakar in the top ten
15.1.2021
It is over! The 43rd Dakar Rally is a thing of the past and a pair of MKR Technology trucks reached the finish line in the last stage in the elite ten. In the overall standings, the top ten just slipped to one of the trucks, but still, there will be a celebration in northern Bohemia. Daniel Kozlovský, on-board technician from Roudnice finished eighth in a truck category with Dutch pilot Martin van den Brink. This year, the best North Bohemian truck is from Kress' MKR Technology workshop.
"It was a very demanding Dakar again. Nothing was for granted. The race did not go according to our plans, but in the end I must say that everything turned out great. I am most pleased with how the crews have evolved from as personalities. They all helped each other, took care of each other, and sometimes you have to slow down to get a good result. Thanks to that, we are in the top ten in the end. Of course, we don't want to be satisfied with that in the future, but this year, after all the ups and downs, I take it positively" said Mario Kress, head of the North Bohemian MKR Technology team, who built three racing trucks for this year's Dakar and two of them made it to the final podium on Friday.
The last 12th stage was the shortest section of this edition. The entire route from Yanbu to Jeddah was four hundred and fifty kilometers, and the final special section measured less than two hundred and thirty. The winner Martin Macík made Czech motorsport fans happy. And two trucks from Židovice from MKR Technology made the fans happy with him. The crew of Martin van den Brink from the Dutch team Mammoet Rallysport with technician Kozlovský on board crossed the finish line on the ninth position and just a few more seconds behind them second crew of Kress’ truck with Pascal de Baar from the team Riwald Dakar made it to the finish line. They just have not made it in the overall top ten, the crew finished eleventh.
The very minimal gaps in the final special section did not make any big changes in the overall ranking. This year's edition was again dominated by Russian Kamaz, who occupied the complete podium - Dmitry Sotnikov wins gold, Anton Shibalov silver and Airat Mardeev bronze. Kozlovský and van den Brink have eighth place in overall standings. For both of them, it is the best result on the most prestigious rally in the world. So far, their maximum was the eleventh position for van den Brink and the 22nd position for Kozlovský. "Finally, we made it to the top ten. And it hurt! We could speak ages about that, but above all, our navigator Wouter de Graaff, who had suffered a light concussion on one of the previous jumps, and since then all stages have been literally a purgatory for him. He could talk about this for a long time. It was almost the same for us to hear his lament in the intercom as if we were suffering alone, so Martin drove with extreme caution. But all evil is good for something. Maybe if he pushed it more, something else would have happened. I guess that's how it should be. Now we are at the finish line, everything will slowly settle and we can say that it was not a bad performance at all and in the end we showed our back to competitors from Roudnice as well," concluded Daniel Kozlovský, on-board technician from MKR Technology, with a satisfied smile.
