Ultimate Dakar racing team
Dakar 2024: An appetizer for Empty Quarter
Today, the special stage between Al-Hofuf and Shubaytah was short but very pleasant for the Toyota Gazoo Racing Czech crew Tomas Ourednicek and David Kripal. The Toyota Hilux T1+ performed flawlessly, and despite losing time while overtaking slower vehicles in front, their 39th time on the stage means improving one position in the overall classification, in which they are 34th after five stages.
“Today, we had only dunes all along the track. We started very far behind, so between slower trucks and many SSVs. But we managed to find a good pace. In the beginning, it was very dusty, but in the dunes, it was nice. We passed the first truck in, I don't know, maybe 2 kilometers. After that, we continued overtaking one vehicle after the other.
Later, we followed an SSV. It was nice because it was fast enough. But at km 76, we saw Ales Loprais fixing his truck, which is not nice for him.
The track was really fun. Maybe these were the best dunes in my life. Our Toyota Hilux was working really perfectly. I didn't want to risk any damage before the huge 48-hour race, and now we will check the car. If it will be like today, it would be fantastic,” Tomas Ourednicek said.
During the next two days, the crews will tackle an almost 800 km loop in the Empty Quarter with 572 km against the clock in a brand new format, the so-called 48h chrono race.
