Eurol in Dakar 2022: Lategan fights for stage win as Al-Attiyah leads comfortably

Toyota GAZOO Racing

Due to heavy rainfall in the last days the Dakar Rally organization decided to shorten the stage to Al Quisumah by a significant part. This gave some crews a rather well deserved breather with some gruelling days to come until the rest day. After a tough opening of the rally Henk Lategan found redemption on Tuesday. The South African battled for the lead all day and just missed out on a stage win.

Nasser Al-Attiyah didn’t fight for the stage win today, but he had a reasonable good day as his main rival lost a lot of time. It helped Al-Attiyah to build his lead to a comfortable 37 minutes, a big achievement after just four days in the rally. Giniel de Villers finished just in front of the overall leader in the race, he took 7th place on the day. Sahmeer Variawa entered the top 20 as the race rolled on, the South African had a great day behind the wheel.

Mammoet Team De Rooy Iveco

Martin van den Brink has taken the time to adjust his driving style to the new Iveco Powerstar in the past few days and that has paid of. The stalwart of the Mammoet Rallysport team finished in P5 on the third stage, his best result of the week. Van den Brink was obviously happy with a perfect day: “It was a fantastic stage, for the first time we didn’t have any problems and this result gives me good confidence for the days to come. I think we’re using our potential better now. In the first stage I felt sick and yesterday we have problems on the drive train. Today was absolutely fantastic. A 5th place makes me very happy.” Fast assistance Mitchel van den Brink was back in form after some problems on Monday, he finished in P15.

Riwald Dakar Team

The Riwald Dakar Team also had a decent day in which Pascal de Baar was the fastest driver of the team. De Baar closed out in P10 and just finished in front of team mate Gert Huzink, who managed to finish in 13th place.

Bernhard ten Brinke

Luck wasn’t so much on the side of Bernhard ten Brinke. The Dutchman started very well, but his progress was halted by a broken drive shaft. Later on, he also lost power steering and that cost a lot of time. Ten Brinke finish in P68 and has a lot of overtaking to do in the next days.