Ultimate Dakar racing team
Dakar 2024: Challenging day but good result for Ourednicek and Kripal
Stage 10, a 371-kilometer loop around Al Ula, posed challenges for the Toyota Gazoo Racing Czech team's crew, Tomas Ourednicek and David Kripal. They lost some time in the dust and due to the consequences of a puncture, but their Toyota Hilux T1+ performed well again, securing them the 33rd position for the day and 40th overall in the unofficial classifications.
“We had a tough morning today. When we arrived at the start, Gareth Woodridge from Ford factory team was looking at our car, and he noticed that one of the driveshafts was damaged. We didn’t have enough time to change it.
We started in big dust, it was impossible to go behind the trucks. Five trucks and a Can-Am started before us. We passed the Can-Am quite quickly, but after about 9 km, we felt a strong vibration, and the rear right tire practically exploded, destroying the rear right of the car. We had to stop and fix it, but with this, we lost a lot of time, and many Can-Ams passed us.
We drove on, but the pressure in the spare tire was not enough, so we had to reduce the pace. Of course, many vehicles passed us again, but we saw several of them running into trouble later. The part after the start was really dangerous. We saw Seth Quintero, who appeared to have had some problem at a dangerous point that was not marked in the roadbook.
After all this and with the pain in my back, it was really difficult to concentrate after this all. Later, there was a short neutralization, for which the trucks had 20 minutes but we in Ultimate only 4 minutes. It was clearly not enough, but at least I was able to drink a OneShot.
After restarting, we had a much better pace. Altogether, the result is not so bad in light of what happened to us today,” Tomas Ourednicek opined. “It was great to see so many Czech fans waving flags along the stage, it really created a fantastic atmosphere for us,” he added.
“Today, navigation was perfect. We had a puncture after 9,5 km and lost some time with changing the tire and repairing the car, but apart from this, the stage was great,” David Kripal summarised Stage 10.
Tomorrow marks the penultimate day of the 46th Dakar Rally, featuring a 420-kilometer special stage from Al Ula to Yanbu.
