Stage by stage, brick by brick, the Repsol Toyota Rally Team is building a Dakar 2024 to remember. Only one clean stage is needed for Isidre Esteve and Txema Villalobos to achieve a very good partial result. This Sunday, a puncture on the 462-kilometer special between Al Henakiyah and Al Duwadimi cost them a handful of minutes, but the sensations at the wheel of the Toyota Hilux T1+ supported by Repsol, MGS Seguros, TOYOTA GAZOO Racing Spain and KH-7 are getting better as the kilometers of competition go by.
"We're really going fast, we're having a good time, we're confident. We don't have clean stages, but as soon as we get a clean one, I think the result will be very good," said Esteve. The Repsol Toyota Rally Team finished the second stage in 35th place overall and 20th in T1+, 37 and a half minutes behind the leader. In the overall, the Toyota Hilux T1+ number 235 holds the 31st position.
The start of Sunday's stage gave a glimpse of the possibilities of Esteve and Villalobos. The first part of the special included the passage through the first dunes of the competition, a very nice section that the Toyota Hilux of the Spanish team has overcome going "very fast". At the first checkpoint, they achieved a magnificent 24th place overall.
However, they then got a bit lost on an off-track section and then, around the 80th kilometer, they had a puncture. "In a fast zone, the car wasn't running and suddenly a rear wheel exploded; I think we must have had a slow puncture in that off-track", said the driver from Lleida. "There were still many kilometers to go and in the rocky area we slacked off a bit, but in the last 150 kilometers we pushed again", he adds.
In large part, the positive sensations are due to the great preparatory work of the Repsol Toyota Rally Team. "The car has never been as good as it is now, in terms of power, suspension... With Repsol's renewable fuel we have improved a lot, and we can feel it. We are surprised with the high pace we are able to drive", says Esteve. His Toyota Hilux T1+ uses Repsol's innovative renewable fuel, 70% of which is produced from organic waste, with the aim of making further progress towards zero emissions.
For all these reasons, Isidre Esteve does not hesitate to say that the team has taken "an important step forward". "Besides, I'm having a lot of fun, I feel good. I'm not fighting with the car all day long; I let it flow, and I finish the stages tired, but just enough", explains the driver from Oliana (Lleida), who manipulates all the controls (accelerator, brake, gearbox and handbrake) with his hands, fighting toe-to-toe with the best.
As for the electronic problem with the throttle that bothered them in the first stage, it is almost completely solved. "Now the mechanics have to finish calibrating it a bit. It didn't go well, it failed a bit, but we didn't lose much time," he acknowledged. "These are little things that happen, but even so, our pace has nothing to do with last year. The pace we saw in the Baja Aragon and Morocco is the one we have now," he insists.
This Monday, the Repsol Toyota Rally Team faces the first part of the marathon stage, between Al Duwadimi and Al Salamiya. There will be 440 kilometers of special stage (out of 733 total), at the end of which the teams will have only two hours of assistance before the vehicles enter the closed park regime for the night.
Stage standings:
1. Stéphane Peterhansel (Audi) 3h 54'40".
2. Sébastien Loeb (Prodrive) +00'29".
3. Seth Quintero (Toyota) +03'11".
4. Nasser Al-Attiyah (Toyota) +06'28".
5. Yazeed Al-Rajhi (Toyota) +07'11".
...
Isidre Esteve (Toyota) +37'31" 35.
Overall standings:
1. Carlos Sainz (Audi) 8h 49'38"
2. Yazeed Al-Rajhi (Toyota) +01'51".
3. Sébastien Loeb (Prodrive) +04'17".
4. Seth Quintero (Toyota) +07'36".
5. Guillaume de Mevius (Toyota) +07'44".
...
31. Isidre Esteve (Toyota) +54'31"
Automatic translation of the Spanish version available on www.todoterreno.pt
Source Repsol Toyota Rally Team
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