Africa Eco Race – Another super fast stage for Iveco’s de Rooy
The last stage of the Africa Eco Race in Mauritania again was one that was too fast for Gerard de Rooy. He pushed the Petronas Team De Rooy Iveco to the limits, but could not beat the cars and buggies that reached speeds of up to 180 kilometres. At the finish of the 219 kilometre selective section, he scored the sixth fastest time.
The eleventh stage of the Africa Eco Race started early and was not too long, as the participants today cross the border with Senegal. There is the final stage tomorrow, a ride of 20 kilometres on the beach at Lac Rose. If De Rooy still wanted to change something in the rankings, then it had to happen today, but the terrain was again not in his favor.
“There was no time to make up for today,” concluded De Rooy at the finish. “The mix of sand and speed still runs too much in favor of speed. The Africa Eco Race is a great rally and I had a great time with beautiful, long specials, but the course is still too much designed for the buggies. I can not cope with that, limited at 150.”
The tenth stage, yesterday, was the best chance for De Rooy to make it to the podium in the final classification, but that failed. “I screwed up myself because I got stuck for an hour,” he says self-critical. In the overall classification Mathieu Serradori can hardly miss the victory. De Rooy enters the final stage in fourth place. His gap on Serradori is 4.42.03. De Rooy is 32 minutes short of the podium.
