Dakar: Toyota strikes back

The third stage of the Dakar Rally ran between the Saudi cities of Al-Dawadimi and Al-Salmiya and on Monday the participants had to cover 733 km, of which 438 km were fast special stages. Lucas Moraes, a driver of the Toyota factory team, coped with the task best of all, and we can say that this achievement will go down in history.

Moraes became the first representative of Brazil to win the Dakar stage in the car category – together with Spaniard Armand Monleon, his co-driver, crew No. 206 drives a Toyota GR DRK Hilux racing SUV.

Interestingly, this is only the second Dakar for Moraes, but last year he reached the podium in the general classification on his first attempt, which is of course impressive.

Thanks to today’s success, the Brazilian-Spanish duo reached 4th place in the overall standings, where, by the way, a change of leader took place: the first position was taken by another team driving a Toyota Hilux SUV – the experienced Saudi racer Yazed Al -Rajhi and his German co-driver Timo Gottschalk.

Today they finished third and in total there were four teams in the top ten, who performed on equipment from the Japanese group, but were prepared for the Dakar by four different teams.

Second place, losing only 9 seconds to the winners, was taken by the Audi Sport factory team squad: Matthias Ekström had already shown the best time in the prologue distance and today he reconfirmed his speed, moving him up to 3rd place could rise in the general classification. In second place overall remains his teammate Carlos Sainz, who posted the sixth fastest time on Monday.

Another Audi Sport driver, Stephane Peterhansel, the winner of yesterday’s stage, finished the third stage of the supermarathon in 6th.

The team of Russian rally raid masters, Denis Krotov and Konstantin Zhiltsov, posted a quite respectable 12th fastest time on Monday – they are also competing in a Toyota Hilux.

The crew of Sebastien Loeb and his navigator, the Belgian Fabien Lerkin, looked the worst of the favorites today – due to a navigation error they lost a lot of time and finished outside the top twenty.

In the two-wheeler class, the stage was won by the famous Argentinian Kevin Benavidez – the two-time Dakar winner is riding Austrian KTM motorcycles for the third year. Based on the results of three days, he is still in 6th place in the absolute rankings.

Among the racers who prefer ATVs among all types of off-road equipment, Frenchman Alexandre Giraud was the first to cross the finish line on his Yamaha Raptor. But the leader in the general classification is the Slovakian Juraj Varga, who surprised many last year. Then he was a Dakar debutant and was automatically classified as an outsider, but Varga took 4th place in this class. And so far he has managed to confirm that that success was not by chance.

In the Challenger class (light SUVs), the American duo Mitchell Guthrie and Kellon Welch took first place on the stage. They drive a Dutch-made Taurus T3 Max and today managed to displace the position of Eric Gochal, the winner of the two previous stages, but the Pole retains the lead in the general classification.

In the T4 category (also called SSV, also called all-terrain vehicles) there is also a change of leader: today the very experienced Saudi racer Yasser Zeidan achieved success – together with his co-driver, the Frenchman Adrien Metge, he is riding a Can-Am Maverick XRS Turbo. But in the general classification, team No. 408 is still in 6th place and the winners of yesterday’s stage, the Spaniards Gerard Guel and Diego Gil, are in the lead.

New winners in the cargo class are the Czech trio Ales Loprais, who made it clear the day before that they had the most serious intentions and today achieved success with their all-wheel drive Praga prototype. In second place is also a Czech team, where the wheel of the Iveco Powerstar is turned by the no less experienced master Martik Masik – suffice it to say that he took 2nd place at last year’s Dakar.

He then only lost to the Dutchman Janus van Casteren, who finished third today, and also lost the lead in the general classification – now led by Loprais.

It should be emphasized that the road, or rather “off-road” conditions on the third stage were very difficult: on rocky sections there was a risk of tire puncture, and even powerful SUVs skidded in the quicksand of the desert.

For example, the left rear tire of Nasser Al-Attiyah’s Prodrive Hunter was punctured, but he continued to run to the finish as if nothing had happened and did not want to waste time replacing it. Of course, he took a serious risk, but it was probably worth it, because at the end of the day the Qatari rider showed 4th place, losing just over a minute and a half to the winner. And Mattias Ekström, with all his experience and skill, managed to conquer some dunes only on the second attempt. However, this did not stop him from finishing second.

On Tuesday, the Dakar participants will face another difficult stage: they will have to cover more than 600 km between Al-Salmiya and the Al-Hofuf oasis. At the same time, the length of the high-speed sections is 299 km – the organizers believe that the terrain through which the route passes is not so rough, i.e. The road conditions will allow you to drive faster, and some will be able to catch up, others will be able to take advantage enlarge. But for this you have to be able to weigh the risk, which not everyone can do. We will discover more closely on Tuesday evening how the intrigues of the super marathon will develop in the future.