Just 29
kilometres of special stage in Peru on Sunday were all
that remained for Iveco to blaze its way into the
history books with the greatest sporting achievement in
the company's history, and the biggest prize that a
truck manufacturer can ever dream of: victory on the
Dakar Rally.The
final stage of the Dakar is traditionally just a
formality run, but formalities have to be completed and
the Team De Rooy Ivecos of #502 Gerard De Rooy and #505
Hans Stacey duly accomplished the mission, leading home
a stunning 1-2 victory in the toughest rally in the
world.
Apart from Iveco
writing its way into history, in some style, there were
quite a few milestones to mention for the Dutch team: 30
years ago, father of Gerard and team manager, Jan De
Rooy, took his first victory in the truck league with
his DAF 2800, with a nose. In the meantime it's also now
25 years ago that the same driver won the truck
category, again with his DAF Turbo Twin II.
Gerard gloriously took
over the baton from his father Jan this year. From the
first day onwards he laid down his marker. De Rooy
claimed an unbroken rally lead from the from the fourth
stage onwards and in total he took five stage victories.
Some of the days Team de Rooy utterly dominated,
especially the twelfth special stage when the vivid
green Ivecos took the first four places.
Second place in the
Dakar went to Hans Stacey, nephew of Jan, who
underscored the performance of the team. For Hans it was
also a new milestone: five years ago he took the first
place in the Dakar with the MAN team. This year he
suffered too many minor problems to challenge for the
win, but took four second fastest stage time.
Today’s final stage
was a round for the sponsors, friends and family, and of
course the Peruvian public who came to watch. And in
fact Miki Biasion, in the #511 Team De Rooy Iveco
Trakker, finished first in time of 27.22 minutes, his
third stage win of the rally this year. However due to
two bad days on the two week long event, former FIA
World Rally Champion for Lancia had to settle for sixth
place overall in the final rankings, six-and-a-half
hours behind Gerard De Rooy. The team's two fast service
trucks also finished well, Pep Vila was eleventh
overall, while Jo Adua took sixteenth place in the final
rankings, which meant that all five Ivecos that started
the rally two weeks ago reached the finish line.
