MAIDEN STAGE WIN FOR MORAES/MONLEON, AS TGR CONTINUES DAKAR CAMPAIGN

• Stage victory for Lucas Moraes and Armand Monleon
• 16th on stage for Giniel de Villiers and Dennis Murphy
• 17th on stage for Seth Quintero and Dennis Zenz
• 21st on stage for Saood Variawa and Francois Cazalet
• 32nd on stage for Guy Botterill and Brett Cummings
• Lucas and Armand up into 4th overall

TOYOTA GAZOO Racing celebrated its first stage victory at Dakar 2024, courtesy of Lucas Moraes and Armand Monleon, who won the tough third stage in their GR Hilux EVO T1U. The pair started the stage, which took the crews from the bivouac at Al Duwadimi to the town of Al Salamiya, as the ninth car on the road, but powered to a stage win thanks to a clean run with no punctures, as well as pin-point navigation by Armand.

Lucas and Armand took the stage win by just 9sec over their nearest competitor, despite a highly challenging stage of 438km. Their performance not only bagged them the stage win, together with a good haul of W2RC points, but also pushed them up the overall standings to 4th place. Their deficit to the overall leader is now 9min 17sec. Remarkably, the race leader – Yazeed Al Rajhi – is driving a near-identical, privately entered Toyota Hilux T1U.

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Stage 3 brought trouble for TGR’s Giniel de Villiers and co-driver, Dennis Murphy. They suffered two punctures early in the stage and were forced to slow down significantly. Unfortunately, they were then also stuck in the dust of the cars that had passed them while they changed the tyres, compounding their problems. The best they could muster in the circumstances was the 16th-fastest time, 19min 42sec behind Lucas and Armand. As far as the overall standings go, they now find themselves in 14th place, 36min 56sec behind the leaders after three stages.

While Giniel and Dennis were disappointed with their Stage 3 result, they suffered one fewer puncture than teammates Seth Quintero and Dennis Zenz. The American driver lost three tyres over the course of the stage and was forced to wait for assistance in order to continue. Assistance arrived swiftly, however, in the form of Lucas and Armand, who paused briefly to hand one of their spares to their teammates, before setting off again. This show of camaraderie may well have cost Lucas and Armand their stage win, given the narrow margin at the top of the standings, but their good deed was rewarded, and Seth/Dennis were able to continue.

Shameer Variawa, SVR Team Principal:
“Any day where you win a Dakar stage is a good one, and I would like to congratulate Lucas and Armand on winning a very tough stage indeed. For the rest of our crews, the day was largely ruined by punctures, though we were happy to see them all at the two-hour service without any major mechanical problems. While they are a bit further back than we’d have liked, this has been a particularly tough start to the race, and reaching this point without any problems is testament to the toughness of our GR Hilux EVO T1U.”

Even though Seth and Dennis had one fresh tyre on their car, they still had to be cautious over the closing kilometres, and in the end, they lost 22min 42sec on the day. This dropped them down the order and out of the Top 10 in the overall standings, where they now trail the race leaders by 27min 18sec.

Lucas Moraes:
“It is really unbelievable! But the day goes to Armand. The navigation was insanely hard, but we hit our marks. I just managed to keep the car in one piece and no punctures, with a good rhythm for sure. But Armand was really on point, and we must thank the whole team. One more, one less day, as we say in Brazil, and I gotta keep going!”

Stage 3 also brought a challenge for TGR’s young gun, Saood Variawa, and his French co-driver, Francois Cazalet. With that said, the pair started the day as the 40th car on the road but fought their way through the dust of slower cars and into 21st place on the stage. They also struggled with navigation in two places, having to double-back to find certain waypoints. But despite this, they relinquished only 23min 37sec to the stage winners, and are in 18th place in the overall standings.

Seth Quintero:
“I didn’t want to play the ‘rubber band game’ today, but unfortunately got unlucky with a couple of punctures and that kinda just ruined our day, to be honest. But there’s a long way to go and I can’t get too upset. I mean, we’re here. We didn’t lose too much time. We’re probably still up there. So yeah, I think just got a little unlucky today. Just need some luck on our side. Hopefully tomorrow we’re up there, but I don’t want to continue playing this flip flop game. We’ve been off the podium every other day. So, maybe tomorrow we’ll get back on the podium, and hopefully we can keep it that way for the rest of the rally.”

TGR’s final crew, Guy Botterill and co-driver, Brett Cummings, had a great start to Dakar 2024, but Stage 3 bit hard. The pair had their first puncture barely 50km into the special stage; and a second 100km further on. This forced them into survival mode, as they were out of spares, only to suffer a third puncture 150km from the finish. Luckily this one didn’t fully deflate the tyre, and the crew were able to nurse their GR Hilux EVO T1U home by stopping to top up the tyre repeatedly. They lost 31min 53sec in the process but are still in 17th place overall.

Giniel de Villiers:
“Yeah, another tough day. Unfortunately, we had two punctures after 70km, and then it was party over. Then, we were in the dust, and I just had to cruise. It was impossible to push, because if you have another flat tyre, you have a big problem. You won’t see the end. So, yeah, it was very frustrating. But anyway, we made it to the end.”

Stage 3 was also the start of a ‘mini-Marathon’ stage for the race, as the technical crews were given only two hours to repair and prepare the cars for Stage 4. To compound the challenge, the race crews camped at a remote bivouac without the support of their teams after Stage 3, before taking on the next stage. This will consist of a liaison of 198km, joining the remote bivouac at Al Salamiya with the start of the route. Next up will be a timed section of 299km, run mainly on dirt tracks, with a small dune section in the mix. Finally, the crews will cover a second liaison of 201km to reach the bivouac at Al-Hofuf.

DAKAR 2024 – STAGE 3 RESULTS

DAKAR 2024 – STANDINGS AFTER STAGE 3