Three Petronas Team De Rooy Iveco trucks inside the Top 10 of the penultimate stage

Gerard de Rooy, mixed in the dust of rivals, was not able to narrow the gap to leaders in Stage 11, but keeps his Iveco Powerstar in the podium for the final approach to Buenos Aires.

​​​​​​​​​Dakar Rally is getting closer to its end. The caravan of survivors arrived today to the bivouac in Río Cuarto, province of Córdoba, after racing 290 kilometres in dunes and WRC roads, adding almost 500 kilometres of liaison route since the start of the day in San Juan.

After some difficult stages with punctures in Gerard de Rooy’s #500 Powerstar, the last winner of the competition placed his Iveco inside the Top 5 of today’s special, but could not reduce the difference with the leaders due to a great amount of dust in part of the stage. Petronas Team De Rooy leader finished in fifth place, 14m41s behind Eduard Nikolaev, winner of the special.

“The last 100 kilometres I was driving behind a cloud of dust and even between the trees. It was impossible to overtake, and far too risky”, stated Gerard de Rooy after the stage.

Ton van Genugten, with the #507 Iveco Trakker ended very near from teammate De Rooy, almost three minutes behind. This left him 17m40s off the best time in sixth position, and clearly showed a great performance in almost every special in Dakar Rally.

Wuf van Ginkel started one minute behind Van Genugten in the road, and rounded up Stage 11 in eighth place, five minutes behind his teammate and 22m43s away from the leader. Thus, the three Petronas Team De Rooy Iveco trucks finished inside the Top 10 of the stage.

Meanwhile, Federico Villagra came very close from winning the special, after losing the lead in the last part to Eduard Nikolaev. In this way, the Argentine in the #502 Iveco Powerstar comes near to secure the fourth place in the overall classification.

On Saturday, 2017 Dakar Rally will reach its final destination in Buenos Aires, with the ceremonial ramp where winners will be crowned after completing more than 9.000 kilometres. But first, participants will race in a 64 kilometres loop stage in Río Cuarto to proclaim the champions of the Dakar Rally’s 39th edition.

For those who want to read more details about the team, vehicles and follow day by day activity, you can go to www.iveco.com/dakar. ​

​​Results Stage 11​​​ and General Trucks

General Ranking​​