The Spanish driver and her co-driver Maurizio Gerini were forced to stop at kilometre 107 of the special after losing power steering on their EBRO s800 XRR.
EBRO Audax Motorsport will return to the start tomorrow for the fourth and penultimate stage after repairing the vehicle and continuing its testing programme ahead of the 2027 Dakar Rally.
Laia Sanz: “The important thing is to keep testing the car and working so that we arrive at the Dakar prepared and this does not happen there.”
The Rallye du Maroc is relentlessly tough. After successfully overcoming a very difficult day yesterday, EBRO Audax Motorsport experienced the other side of the coin on Thursday when a mechanical issue forced the team to retire from Stage 3.
Laia Sanz and her co-driver Maurizio Gerini approached the day with optimism thanks to a more favourable starting position than the previous day. Despite a navigation mistake in the opening kilometres, they were running at a good pace in their EBRO s800 XRR. However, at around kilometre 90 of the special, the power steering pump failed.
The Spanish-Italian pairing continued until kilometre 107, where they decided to return to the bivouac to repair the vehicle and focus their efforts on tomorrow's stage. Tackling the bulk of the special, including dunes, rocky sections and sandy tracks, without power steering was simply not viable.
“We really wanted to have a clean day. At the beginning we got a little lost, but we were running at a good pace and testing suspension settings that are working much better, so the feeling was good. Then the steering pump broke. We couldn't repair it and we also couldn't continue like that for the 250 kilometres we still had ahead of us, so we had to return to service. The important thing is to keep testing the car and working so that we arrive at the Dakar prepared and this does not happen there,” explained the Catalan driver.
Back at the bivouac, the EBRO Audax Motorsport mechanics focused on preparing the EBRO s800 XRR for the fourth and penultimate stage of the Rallye du Maroc, which takes place tomorrow, Friday, with 381 timed kilometres and a total route of 513 kilometres.
Source: EBRO Audax Motorsport
