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I am really pleased to have made it through the marathon with no brakes and my electronics damaged by water and mud.”
Isidre Esteve is just getting better as Dakar 2018 unfolds. This Sunday, the Spaniard has once again taught us a lesson about self-achievement by finishing the marathon stage in 28th place with faulty brakes and a speed limit of 100 km/h. In spite of it all, the Repsol Rally Team race driver is ploughing ahead in the Sodicars Racing BV6, edging closer to his big goal: the top 20.
The first part of the marathon stage was raced yesterday and took its toll on the mechanics of the prototype driven by Isidre Esteve and his co-pilot, Txema Villalobos. The water and the mud damaged the 4×4’s control unit and brakes. But through it all, the Spanish racer managed to overcome the obstacles and score his best partial result so far in this edition: 24th place.
With no assistance to help him on camp, Isidre Esteve was unable to solve the problem, meaning that he had no choice but to race the next 498 timed kilometres between Uyuni and Tupiza as best he could. So coming 28th at the end and managing a time of 7h 05’44” was no mean feat and is a telling sign of his stamina and skill behind the wheel.
“Adding to the electronic issues that prevented us from doing more than 100 km/h yesterday came our trouble with the brakes today because of the all the mud. We had to change the chip and focus on making it to camp somehow. We managed to get there accident-free and even climbed a few places in the overall rank… What more could we ask?” said the Repsol and Onyx Seguros racer proudly.
Regarding Sunday’s stage, Isidre Esteve recalled that “it was fast and complicated, but with some slow parts. The most important thing is that we are moving forward, we have made it through the marathon and now the mechanics will have time to get the car back into perfect condition.”
Past the half-way point, the Repsol Rally Team stands 23rd in the temporary rank with an overall 3rd in its category T1.2 (off-road modified diesel 4×4), scoring a total time of 41h 06’02”. So far, the team is managing to stick to the original plan of making it through the first half in the top 30 to then try and climb higher in week two.
Tomorrow is Monday and should mark the start of the ninth stage from Tupiza to Salta, but the organisers have decided to call it off because of the bad weather, so the teams will have to travel to Argentina by road. The competition will be back on Tuesday for stage 10 between Salta and Belén.