It’s a day of huge extremes for Kuipers-Jongbloed Hybrid. The schedule featured a 371-kilometre stage, the second part of a marathon stage. Kay Huzink delivered an exceptionally impressive second place, just three minutes and eighteen seconds behind stage winner Martin Macík. Rookie Kay has been posting strong results all week and, together with navigator Rob Buursen and mechanic Gait Schonbeveld, has now secured his first podium finish. Something to celebrate — but on the other side of the coin, Gert Huzink did not reach the finish of Stage 5. As a result, his classification ambitions for this year must be set aside.
The team leader of Kuipers-Jongbloed Hybrid will, however, start again tomorrow with navigator Hugo Kupper and mechanic Mario Kress, but in the Experience class. In that category, it is still possible to fight for stage wins outside the overall standings. From now on, Gert, Hugo and Mario will primarily take on a supporting role for Kay, Rob and Gait.
Kay Huzink: “Unbelievable”
Today, Kay, Rob and Gait once again ran a consistent race. Truck number 616 moved up in the live timing from seventh to fifth and, in the final section, from third to second. Kay reports on the day and explains why much of the success is thanks to Rob Buursen:
“The marathon stages are behind us. Yesterday morning at the briefing we agreed to drive conservatively because we had to do two days without service. We executed the plan as discussed and finished yesterday in sixth place. Last night we prepared a few things ourselves and today we tried to do the same as yesterday. After five kilometres we immediately caught Loprais and later many other trucks as well. Up to the neutralisation at kilometre 270 we drove conservatively again and didn’t experience anything crazy. After the neutralisation at kilometre 290 we saw that a number of competitors were off with their navigation and we overtook Loprais — who had passed us again — because Rob was super sharp with the navigation. In the last 75 kilometres we pushed a bit and crossed the finish in second. What a day, and unbelievable that in our debut year we can set a second-fastest stage time. But we mustn’t get too enthusiastic and we will stick to our goal of reaching the finish. On to tomorrow.”
Gert Huzink: “The team’s interests come first”
If you want to get on the podium you have to take a lot of risks and constantly search for the limits. Gert is an ambitious man and is willing to go all the way for it. Unfortunately, today we see the downside of that commitment: everything has to go your way — and this time it didn’t. Gert explains what happened:
“Yesterday we started the marathon stage. You know what’s coming and we set off fairly conservatively. After just a few kilometres we were already in first position behind Macík. He didn’t move aside. We drove out of the dust, could follow fine and kept him in sight. That was going well, but after 140 kilometres, in the soft sand, the front-wheel drive suddenly dropped out. Then all traction goes to the rear tyres, with more wear as a result. Because of that we punctured three rear tyres, and for the third tyre we had to wait twenty minutes for Kay. All in all we lost about an hour. Last night we still tried to fix the truck, but it didn’t work. So this morning we started with two-wheel drive. On the first dune crest we were already stuck and getting free took too long. When everything had passed us, I made the call to stop the stage. The risk of getting stuck again and then not being able to reach the bivouac was too great. We would have needed assistance from the bivouac and that manpower would be taken away from Kay. I’m glad we made that call, even though we’re now out ourselves. The team’s interests always come first. Everything is being repaired now. We hope tomorrow we can stay close behind Kay and support him if he needs it. Maybe he won’t need it at all, because Kay is doing a superb job. He looks after the equipment — little damage and low tyre wear. He’s doing it perfectly. We’ll start in a different role, with new goals.”
Stage 6: Ha’il – Riyadh
Tomorrow takes the competitors from Ha’il to Riyadh. It will be a long day with no less than 589 kilometres of liaison and 331 kilometres of special stage. The organisers indicate it will be a day full of dunes. It is the day before the rest day and will most likely be extremely tough. Both human and machine will be pushed hard one more time before the welcome breather on Saturday.eather on Saturday.
Source: Kuipers-Jongbloed Hybrid
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