The return to Argentina saw Stage 10 of the 2015 Dakar, a special timed stage. Gerard de Rooy was Iveco’s best performer, placing fifth. The Dutch driver continues to regain ground maintaining his place in the Top 10.
Early Wednesday morning the remaining 2015 Dakar competitors returned to Argentina leaving the Calama campsite behind. In a highly demanding stage for both the trucks and their drivers, the 358-kilometre road was changed to 371, the same distance travelled by motorbikes and quads. Both the cars and trucks had to undergo an extended stage after having crossed areas that were 4,500 metres above sea level.
Eduard Nikolaev (Kamaz) was the stage winner once again, coming in shortly before the following competitors. Iveco’s best performer was Gerard de Rooy at the wheel of his Powerstar. He arrived only 5m19s from the lead moving at an increasingly faster pace throughout the day. He had a very fast start fighting the stage leader inch by inch and finally coming fifth place in the stage.
Hans Stacey, Iveco fleet’s leader in the general ranking, finished right after De Rooy, only 7m16s from the leader. He is rapidly approaching the fifth position in the general rankings, which is currently in the hands of Sotnikov (Kamaz). Today he was able to gain more than 20m on Sotnikov remaining 18m09s in the total sum of times.
In turn, Pep Vila was imposed a 40-minute penalty in the ninth stage for failing to pass through a waypoint – a checkpoint that drivers have to cross through to have their time recorded. “We were coming from a very dusty area, among cars, trucks and quads… all that dust prevented me from seeing where we were and we did not have that checkpoint on our GPS,” said Vila. In addition to the time lost due to the penalty, he finished 24m43s from the lead in 16th position, slipping to 13th position in the general rankings.
More info available at www.iveco.com/dakar
