Snijders & Rodewald join Van Kasteren on Petronas Team De Rooy Iveco for Dakar 2020
Two major changes have been made to Janus van Kasteren’s crew at Petronas Team De Rooy Iveco. Instead of Erwin van den Bosch and Frank van Hoof, Marcel Snijders and Darek Rodewald will join Van Kasteren in the Iveco Powerstar. With Albert Llovera the Spaniard Marc Torres replaces mechanic Ramon Peters.
The changes at Van Kasteren, with start number 505 the highest-rated Dutchman among the trucks, were prompted by an injury with Erwin van den Bosch. The navigator sustained that injury in a crashe of the SSV of Janus van Kasteren senior in the Morocco Desert Challenge and he is still suffering too much from that.
With Marcel Snijders, Van Kasteren junior has a very experienced navigator with twelve Dakars to his name. The Dutchman participated for the first time in 2005. The 52-year-old Snijders rode the rally six times on the motorcycle, last year for the last time. In addition, he was a navigator in the car four times and twice in the truck.
With Darek Rodewald (36), the leader of Petronas Team De Rooy Iveco also has a lot of experience in the cabin. For the Polish mechanic it will be the eleventh Dakar. With Gerard de Rooy, he won the Dakar in 2012 and 2015 and took the podium in 2014, 2017 and 2019.
Marc Torres, who takes the place of Ramon Peters with Andorran Albert Llovera, is also no stranger to Team De Rooy. He was previously in the truck with, among others, Pep Vila.
The occupation of the four trucks of Petronas Team De Rooy Iveco now looks like this:
505 – Janus van Kasteren / Marcel Snijders / Darek Rodewald
517 – Albert Llovera / Ferran Marco Alcayna / Marc Torres
522 – Vick Versteijnen / Teun van Dal / André van der Sande
531 – Michiel Becx / Edwin Kuijpers / Bernard der Kinderen