Team De Rooy started the
33rd Dakar Rally yesterday with three new Iveco rally
trucks and high hopes of gunning for honours; however
disaster struck very quickly and team leader Gerard De
Rooy was forced to pull out after injuring his back.
That set back came after
after just 72 km of the first stage which took the teams
from from Victoria to Córdoba in Argentina. Gerald De
Rooy (#501) unfortunately reignited a back injury (that
the Dutchman had picked up on the Silk Rally in 2009) as
he negotiated a sharp jump and had to retire from the
rally.
It leaves the
remaining Iveco and Team De Rooy challenge resting
firmly on the shoulders of experienced Spanish raid
driver Pep Villa (#506) and Hugo Duisters (#520). The
team also has a fourth vehicle in the rally, a standard
Iveco Trakker 8x8 (#818) for service duties.
At the front of the
truck pack yesterday Vladimir Chagin took his 57th Dakar
stage victory, a record for a competitor across any
class, and he comes into this year's edition with no
less than six truck category wins, including the 2010
edition. The Russian pilot steered through the 222 km
gravel test which saw the competitors having to deal
with dust and rain, in two hours 44 minutes 22 seconds,
which was 4 minutes and 1 second faster than Czech
driver Ales Loprais (Tatra) and 5 minutes and 52 seconds
ahead of his team mate and fellow countryman Firdaus
Kabirov.
Villa led the Iveco
challenge past the chequered flag on stage one; the
Spaniard came in after 2 hours and 59.35 seconds which
leaves him 15 minutes and 13 seconds off the overall
leader while the third Iveco driven by Duisters
(3:06.33) was three places further back and is 22
minutes and 11 seconds off the lead. Fifty trucks
finished the first stage with a third Iveco Eurocargo,
entered by Ralliart Team Italy, also being on the
leaderboard, the #556 driven by Renato Rickler del Mare,
who, along with crew mates Tito Totani and Franco
Guintoli, finished in 28th place, 50 minutes and 40
seconds off Chagrin.
De Rooy wasn't the
only Dutch truck driver to suffer as Wulfert Van Ginkel
suffered a tyre blow out and somersaulted on the
motorway damaging his truck beyond repair meaning that
he couldn't even take the start. In the car category
Carlos Sainz (VW) began his title defence with stage
victory, one and a half minutes ahead of Peterhansel
(BMW) while amongst the bikes, French rider Cyril
Despres takes a half minute lead into today's stage with
a KTM 1-2-3-4 lock out at the top of the two-wheel
classification.
The bike, car and
truck competitors have 12 more stages to tackle on a
tough route that will take them into Chile, across the
vast wastes of the Atacama Desert and into the Andres,
with 5,000 km of timed stages out of a total route of
13,500 km before the survivors of the 33rd edition of
the rally return to Buenos Aires on January 15th. The
organisers claimed more than a million people turned out
for the ceremonial start in Buenos Aires and many will
line the route over the next two weeks.
