Giniel de Villiers has brought his Toyota Hilux to the halfway point of the 2012 Dakar Rally. Giniel tells us about a satisfying stage and plenty of positives for the future…
We had a good day overall, the first part of the stage was particularly well suited to our car. We went well during that section and clocked up a nice time. The second half of the day was very sandy and that exposed some of the work we still need to do on the car. The engine we’re using hasn’t got the same torque as the Minis so the couple that I overtook earlier in the day went past me when we hit the rough stuff.
Nasser (Al-Attiyah) came past me as well at an incredible speed, it was unbelievable the way he came shooting past us. He started just behind us today but managed to beat us by 20 minutes on the stage. We had to eat a bit of dust today but I’m still happy with how the car ran. We learnt a lot out there about improvements we need to make to the car for the future. Dirk got his navigation spot on and I was happy with my driving so it’s satisfying way to reach the halfway point.
'We had to eat a bit of dust today but I’m still happy with how the car ran'
Now we’ve reached the rest day there’s been a relaxed halftime team talk from Glyn Hall our boss. We could have been 15 minutes closer to the top of the leaderboard if we didn’t get stuck the other day but on the whole things have been running smoothly.
We know we can’t compete with the Mini over these conditions at the moment but there’s plenty to be positive about. Our car is built inline with the new regulations that will come into play at next year’s Dakar, our plan has always been long term. Because this is our first time taking this car to the Dakar we are using this race as testing session as well as doing our best to clock up some decent times.
Keep tabs on Giniel’s 2012 Dakar Rally on Red Bull’s dedicated desert classic website.
Want more?
- Check out Giniel's profile page
- Redbull.com's 2012 event page
- Daily Dakar Diary
- More Red Bull motor sports
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