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Dakar 2024: In the Dakar, a friend is everything
Marcos Baumgart and Kleber Cincea gave up finishing the fifth stage in the top ten to help their friend and compatriot Lucas Moraes, who had overturned.
In the extremely competitive environment of motor sport, scenes like the one seen in the middle of the Arabian desert on Wednesday (10) during the fifth stage of the Dakar 2024 come as a breath of fresh air. Brazilians Marcos Baumgart and Kleber Cincea, from X Rally, gave up seventh place overall in the stage between Al Hofuf and Shubaytah, in Saudi Arabia, to help their friend and compatriot Lucas Moraes, who is competing in the race with Spanish navigator Armand Monleon.
Lucas and Armand overturned their Toyota at around kilometer 60 of the stage, which covered 118 timed kilometers - adding up the journeys, a total of 645 on the day. Marcos and Kleber, who had been on a great pace in the race - in the top ten in the previous stage - stopped to tow Moraes' car and get it unstuck.
"I've never done a special with so much sand, and it was very easy to make a mistake. We started relatively well and were on a good pace in the race, and unfortunately we saw Lucas in trouble, overturned," said Baumgart, who revealed the reason behind the decision to help his friend, but at the same time, adversary. "We decided to stop and help so that he could continue to have a chance. As we're no longer competing for a result in the overall standings, we stayed in the race to learn and also to help our friends achieve a good position," said Marcos, who didn't complete the second stage due to a technical problem, which eliminated his chances of being able to fight for a good final result.
The duo finished the stage in 32nd place, just over nine and a half minutes behind the winning duo of Nasser Al-Attiyah and Mathieu Baumel, also from Prodrive. Cristian Baumgart and Beco Andreotti finished in 38th place.
This Thursday (11), the competitors enter the most feared challenge of this Dakar 2024: the 48-hour stage in the Empty Quarter - the largest continuous area of sand on the planet, in the Rub' al Khali desert, with an area of 650,000 square kilometers. The sixth stage spans two days and 572 timed kilometers out of a total of 781.
Competitors will have until 4pm local time on Thursday to set up in one of the campsites allocated by the organization. "There are several posts scattered throughout this stretch and no one can continue beyond 4pm. So it's going to be a very strategic stage. We're taking supplies and we've also received military rations," said Beco Andreotti, Cristian Baumgart's navigator. "Again, we'll be sleeping in tents. At least now we know how to disarm them," he laughed.
The X Rally Team is sponsored by Vedacit, Motul, BF Goodrich, Rodobens, Center Norte, Rock and Opaoma.
Automatic translation of the Brazilian Portuguese version available on www.todoterreno.pt
Source: X-Rally Team
Photo: A.S.O. / DPPI
Helder