Roma moves up to 3rd in Toyota Hilux : DeVilliers 3rd fastest on SS&

Jan 10, 2017

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Overdrive Racing’s Joan Roma and Alex Haro resumed their challenge for a first ever Dakar Rally victory for the Toyota brand by moving up to third overall on the shortened 161km special stage between La Paz and Uyuni in Bolivia on Monday.

Running with support from Monster Energy, Power Electronics and Air Europa, Roma began the special from second position on the road behind Frenchman Sébastien Loeb and reached the amended finish in fifth place after dropping five minutes on the track.

The Spaniard now trails the rally-leading Stéphane Peterhansel by 11min 07sec heading into the second half of the Marathon stage, but he was able to move ahead of Cyril Despres and claim the final provisional podium position. Peterhansel extended his advantage over Loeb to 1min 57sec at the top of the leader board.

The special featured a lot of sandy sections, dunes and tricky navigation at the start and mud and large water splashes towards the finish.

Toyota Gazoo Racing’s De Villiers moves up two places to sixth

Toyota Gazoo Racing South Africa’s Giniel de Villiers and Dirk von Zitzewitz were classified in eighth overall at the start of the day and are still targeting the top five in their Hilux. They were in impressive form and the third quickest time enabled them to gain several minutes on rivals Orlando Terranova and Jakub Przygonski and dispose of the Argentinean and the Pole to snatch sixth place.

Conrad Rautenbach and co-driver Robert Howie were 15^th overall at the start of the day in a second Toyota Gazoo Racing Toyota and continued their run of good form with a solid stage performance to climb a position to 14^th in the general classification.

The Dutch crew of Erik van Loon and Wouter Rosegaar continued their measured push towards the Dakar finish in Buenos Aires and the 13^th quickest time enabled Van Loon to retain his 19^th place.

Alejandro Yacopini and Daniel Merlo began the second half of the event just one position outside the top 20 in their Overdrive Racing Toyota. They were 19^th on the day and maintained 21^st.

Time penalties lifted for Overdrive’s He Zhitao

He Zhitao and Kai Zhao had incurred too many penalties on the first half of the event into La Paz and Overdrive Racing had questioned the amount imposed that had dropped the Chinese crew to 50^th overall. Their enquiry was upheld and the sixth Toyota running under the Boundless Yong Team banner started the seventh stage in 37^th overall with over 10 hours of penalties removed from their total. They completed the stage in 3hr 16min 19sec to remain well on course to finish the rally.

Additional support for Overdrive Racing comes from Power Electronics and Kappa clothing.

TODAY AND TOMORROW

Rally officials were forced to devise a completely new competitive route for stages seven and eight and a new road book was finalised and distributed at the rest day in La Paz. The intended stage of 322km across the Altiplano was shortened to just 161km to finish at the original WP4 and the sandier special was sandwiched between a pair of liaison sections of 400km and 240km into the overnight bivouac in Uyuni. This was a Marathon stage without service assistance for crews at the night halt.

The second section across the border into Salta in Argentina was also revised and crews would receive more details at the evening’s briefing in Uyuni. The original stage would have been a mammoth 492km in a route of 892km, but substantial revisions were expected to be announced, as the route headed across the frontier where lower altitudes and warmer temperatures would be prevalent.

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