Dakar 2023: Austin Jones halves his gap to leader before rest day

Today, in the second part of this unplanned marathon stage, Austin Jones and Gustavo Gugelmin continued to drive as they have done throughout the first part of the 2023 Dakar Rally: keeping their calm and bringing the Red Bull Off-Road Junior Team Can-Am home in the top 5. Today it was a 4th position for the crew in the stage which means that they are still 2nd overall, but practically halved their gap to the leader.

“I just finished up stage number 8 out here at Dakar. Really good day for us today. It was really rocky, like a proper desert, so I knew it was gonna be a good day for us. We got away with no flats or problems or anything like that, and we ended up taking five minutes from the lead. So now we're in P2, about three minutes out of P1. So, perfect for us. It's exactly where we wanted to be, that was our plan. So we're at the rest day now, and everything's coming together well.
This was the second leg of the marathon day, or semi-marathon because the mechanics got to look at the car. The marathon was pretty nice. We had some blow mattresses that took an hour to blow up. Everybody all together, pretty much packed in as close as possible in a little room trying to find some heat, but it was good, you know, can't complain too much.
Now, next week, we're going to kind of do the same thing, just pick where we need to go fast, pick where we need to go slower, and make a plan based on where everything's shaken out. But it's looking good, we're happy and we just hope for the best,”
Austin Jones said before the rest day.

“We finished the marathon stage. Yesterday night was good, we slept all together in the same place. It was not the catering tent, it was the competitors office. We found a nice spot with air conditioners, so it wasn't so bad.
Today was a long day. We kept driving consistently and we are here. So let's rest, and see tomorrow what do we do.
It was hard navigation at the beginning. Lots of change of the directions, left, right, climbing up, going down. A lot of rocks, and Austin did a very good job taking care of the tires.
First part of the Dakar was about being consistent. You know, let's keep moving, consistently, arriving every day in top five. And that's the point. Strategy for a second part? We're gonna see tomorrow, I don't know yet. But for sure, we're gonna keep pushing. We're like three minutes behind the leader, so it's gonna be a big fight,”
co-driver Gustavo Gugelmin added.

Text: Rita Kónya
Interview: Sveta Amelichkina
Photos: MCH