Stage 10: Iveco seeks a spot in the Top Five of the overall rankingoverall ranking

The return to Argentina was framed by Stage 10 of the 2015 Dakar, a special timed stage where Hans Stacey, onboard his Iveco Powerstar, was seeking a spot within the Top Five of the overall ranking.

in past stages, Gerard de Rooy was Iveco’s best performer, this time in 5th position. The Dutch driver continues to gain ground maintaining his place in the Top 10.

Early this Wednesday morning the 2015 Dakar survivors returned to Argentina leaving the Calama campsite behind: only 40 trucks are still in the race out of the 67 that started.

The Russian Eduard Nikolaev was the stage winner again, but with a very small difference over the rest of the competitors, while Iveco’s best performer was Gerard de Rooy once again, at the wheel of his Powerstar, who moved at an increasingly faster pace throughout the day. He had a very fast start and fought inch by inch, to then stand in 5th place for the stage.

Hans Stacey – the Iveco fleet’s leader in the general ranking– finished right after his team mate Gerard De Rooy, only 7m16s from the leaders. The experienced Dutch driver is rapidly approaching the 5th position in the general ranking, that is currently in the hands of the Russian driver Sotnikov.

In turn, Pep Vila was imposed a 40-minute penalty yesterday for failing to pass through a waypoint, one of the checkpoints that pilots have to go through to have their time recorded, and getting knocked down to 13th place in the overall ranking.