After a fairly wet and windy night at the bivouac, the rally really started this morning with a tough stage that showed the Dakar isn’t an easy task and confirmed its reputation of being the world toughest rally.
Stage 1B: 333km of fast ‘wet’ sand and dunes
It is not common to see rain in the desert, and these conditions immediately proved that anything can happen during the Dakar, the world toughest rally.
The special stage of the day has surprised a lot of competitors with a lot of sand, rocky paths and some of them already lost hours and hours trying to get out of it, in all categories.
Very good stage that lead us to 7th in T4 category
For the TG-D1 buggy of Jerome and Mika, the stage went pretty well and after having passed many cars during the 4H30 of intense racing, they arrived 7th in class, which also means 7th in the T4 category rankings, which is really encouraging, as our plan is to maintain that top10 position and see what could happen during the second week.
There is still a long way to go, but that a was a great 1st stage for the team, keeping in mind the fierce competition we are facing with the top team contenders leading the race for now.
Jerome de Sadeleer – Driver : « It was a very nice stage, actually very fast with a lot of wet sand. I must say we generally don’t meet rain in the desert but it matched my driving style. There was a tough terrain at some point during the stage where we suffered a puncture, but we weren’t the only ones, so we changed the tyre fairly quickly and get back to our pace as fast as we could. I felt good and the car was awesome today! »
Mika Metge – Navigator : « We can be happy with the result, especially because the navigation pats went very well. I used all my experience to find the waypoints without loosing too much time. It was a nice feeling to see our competitors « gardening » to find them while I was sure of my choices. That paid and Jerome had definitely the right pace today. Let’s continue that way. We are gaining confidence and that will pay for what is coming in the next stages. »
Cyril Neveu – Team Manager : « Jerome & Mika really applied the right method today. The car arrived intact at the end of this tough stage where many competitors suffered a lot of time loss. This means that our crew is operating well when the terrain is complicated. « Bravo » for their performance. Now we are in the top10 and knowing the Dakar is very long, we have to continue that way. Without big mistakes, a decent result looks like possible. »