Rallye du Maroc 2022: Gert Huzink: "Our mechanics delivered a world performance"

It was extremely uncertain on Tuesday evening whether Riwald Dakar could return to the start of the fourth stage of the Rallye du Maroc on Wednesday. Fifteen minutes before the scheduled departure time, the truck was ready again. But like earlier this rally, driver Gert Huzink was not completely spared from bad luck.
On Tuesday, the Renault truck caught fire in the third stage after the team was on course for the day's victory. As a result, it remained to be seen whether the truck could be repaired before the finale of the Rallye du Maroc. "I must honestly say that our mechanics delivered a world-class performance," said Huzink with admiration for his mechanics. "This morning at a quarter to ten everything was ready while we had to leave at ten o'clock. Then you start such a test with the idea that maybe something is still wrong, it was a big fire. There only has to be one cable that is still damaged and you have a short circuit or something like that, you take that into account a bit, but it didn't happen."
And so Huzink was able to do what he does best: "We went full out from the start. We passed Macik, Kees Koolen had started first and we passed him as well. It was going very well until we got a flat tire. Then we were able to overtake Macik again, but things went wrong at a step that was not in the road book. In the process, two leaf springs broke off. It was really dangerous, a big impact. It doesn't improve the comfort in the truck, but the tires also ran off. Since we had already changed, we had to wait. We borrowed a tire from Macik so we could at least get to the finish."
For the first 255 kilometers, Huzink was by far the fastest truck in the race, but eventually the trio reached the finish line in fifth place. "It was not a pretty test, really one full of stones and bumpy roads like you know from Morocco. We already knew that the car goes hard if we stay in one piece. These things can happen, especially if it's not in the roadbook. Then a leaf spring might break."
Huzink went out Wednesday with an order from Mario Kress, who developed the truck: "We had to go full out. We did that and I think we will do that again tomorrow."

Automatic translation from the original Dutch version
Source  Riwald DakarTeam