Bad weather affects Bolivia and Dakar Rally: Saturday’s Stage 6, cancelled
As happened during the second part of Friday’s special, heavy rain forces the organisation to cancel a timed section again. The sixth stage will only have a liasion road, where the Petronas Team De Rooy Iveco trucks will go from Oruro to La Paz.
The fifth stage of the race brought too much trouble for some vehicles with mud, a truck tipped over in a river and the navigation with the route map was almost impossible for the participants. Given that weather conditions did not improve, Marc Coma and the organisers decided to cancel Stage 6, which was supposed to be the longest in 2017.
The decision was made during Friday night, when confirmation about the conditions of the roads for Saturday were already known. By means of this press release, ASO reported the situation:
“Considering the extreme climatic conditions and that some drivers are still on the stage course, considering that is impossible to bring vehicles of all participants back to the bivouac and prepare the next stage in the best conditions, and considering that people of the organisation in charge of the reco of tomorrow’s stage course informed that the road is unpracticable, the 6th stage of ORURO-LA PAZ has been cancelled”.
In this way and taking into account that Sunday will be the Rest Day for drivers, there will be no further competition until Monday, where the crews will attack the La Paz – Uyuni stage.
Gerard de Rooy and Iveco will go through the weekend in the top of the overall classification, after winning the last two specials.
Dutchmen from Iveco Trakkers #507 and #525, Ton van Genugten and Wuf van Ginkel, will be able to work on their trucks and prepare in the best way the second part of the race, after a difficult stage on Friday.
Meanwhile, Federico Villagra, with another Iveco Powerstar, will set his goal in returning to the Top 5 of the general classification.