That the Dakar is the toughest race in motorsport is not a mere cliché. The Repsol Toyota Rally Team has seen this in all its starkness these days. Isidre Esteve and Txema Villalobos completed the second part of the 48-hour time trial this Saturday morning, 24 hours later than expected, after spending a second night in the desert. The technical problem they had on Friday has made their fight to stay in the race epic. But they have achieved it. The Spanish team travels to Riyadh to meet the caravan and resume the test on Sunday.
The 48-hour time trial was the queen stage of the Dakar, with a route of 547 kilometers, entirely over the dunes of the Empty Quarter. For Esteve and Villalobos it has been a true marathon, worthy of the most legendary feats that have made the Dakar famous. The team supported by Repsol, MGS Seguros, TOYOTA GAZOO Racing España and KH-7 has spent 47 hours to complete it, from the start on Thursday morning until reaching the finish line in Shubaytah this morning. For them it has been a 48 hour time trial, almost literally.
The stage had almost started to go well for them last Thursday. In the first part they swallowed no less than 402 kilometers of dunes and settled in camp “D”, the one they had planned on paper. They only needed one way point (15 minute penalty) that was not validated on the crest of a dune, but it was so steep that they could not climb back up. On Friday they had 147 kilometers ahead of them. However, shortly after starting, the front differential broke. It was a case of real bad luck.
“We hadn't dealt any blows or anything. If the special was already difficult in itself, without front-wheel drive, with this soft sand, we were stuck even when the ground was flat. Txema removed the front driveshafts and the cardan shaft to leave the differential free, but we got stuck twice at the bottom of a dune, and each time it took us between five and six hours to get the car out,” explains the driver from Oliana (Lleida). .
No one could help them and, to make matters worse, their track assistance truck had overturned on Thursday and they couldn't count on it either. “When they told us that we did not have the T4 truck because it was overturned, we found it almost impossible. Txema spent ten hours removing sand from under the car, sometimes to move it a couple of feet. We went through a thousand and one, really,” Esteve acknowledges.
“I think we will have to contact the authorities in Saudi Arabia to tell them that they have to redo the maps, because we have changed several dunes. Even my eyebrows hurt. “It was brutal!” jokes Txema Villalobos.
Therefore, when night fell, they made the decision to stop at camp “G”, the last one on the route of the special, to spend the night and complete the remaining 47 kilometers on Saturday first thing in daylight. They started at 5:30 in the morning… “And at 5:45 we were hooked again. Luckily it has only happened to us once. At 6:45 we crossed the finish line.” It had been 47 hours since they had left the Shubaytah bivouac the previous Thursday.
Thus, without giving up in the face of adversity and displaying commendable strength and pride, the Repsol Toyota Rally Team has managed to complete the entire stage and continue in the race with all the law. “The fact that we are here, that we have done the entire special without skipping anything and that we are still in the race has incredible value for us,” assesses the driver from Ilerda. Indeed, despite the difficulties, in this second part of the special they have validated all the way points (mandatory passage points), which has a lot of merit, taking into account the circumstances.
However, the odyssey did not end at the goal of Shubaytah. Then they had a tremendous connection of a thousand kilometers to travel to Riyadh, the scene of this Saturday's rest day, and where this Sunday the second week of competition will begin. The Repsol Toyota Rally Team was scheduled to arrive in the Saudi capital around 10:00 p.m. (local time). For them, the theoretical rest granted by the organization to the participants will have been a tremendous beating on the road, added to the effort accumulated in their particular 48-hour time trial.
Automatic translation of the Spanish version available on www.todoterreno.pt
Source: Repsol Toyota Rally Team's official press release
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