Gerard De Rooy gets on Stage 7 podium

Gerard de Rooy’s Iveco Powerstar achieved second place in today’s new Marathon stage for Trucks in the Dakar 2015 after an extraordinary performance.

​He arrived only 5m37s behind today's winner, the Czech Ales Loprais at the wheel of a MAN. Hans Stacey, arrived 6th in the stage, remaining 7th in the overall ranking.

Stage 7 of the Dakar 2015 edition was the first part of the so-called Marathon stages, in which the vehicles cannot receive any external assistance and only the drivers can work on their own trucks. There is a private bivouac and the contenders are completely alone. Tomorrow will pose yet another challenge when the drivers will have to return to the Iquique campsite, where they will once again be able to get support from their teams.

Today’s timed section covered 335 km on diverse terrain including dirt, stony ground, sand and fesh fesh. Gerard de Rooy’s Iveco Powerstar made an extraordinary performance in his attempt to get a place on the stage’s podium. De Rooy also achieved very good partial results throughout the day and showed the strength of his Powerstar on tough tracks.

Hans Stacey, Iveco’s best-positioned driver in the overall ranking, closed Stage 7 of the Dakar 2015 in 6th place. With some ups and downs along the special section, Hans’s Iveco Powerstar proved to be reliable enough which helped the driver to continue to accelerate and enabled him to maintain the 7th position; if Stacey keeps up the good pace in the upcoming special stages, he might go up in the ranking in the final results.

Nearly in the Top 10, Pep Vila completed a very good partial stage today with his Iveco Trakker Evolution II and remains in 13th position in the overall ranking: his main objective is to capture a place in the Top 10.

The trucks will return to the Iquique campsite tomorrow, thus completing today’s Marathon stage. If the drivers had had any problems during Stage 7 they would have had to work them out without their team’s assistance.