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“We are going home very happy because this race has been an incredible learning opportunity for the entire team”.
Isidre Esteve has successfully passed his last big test before Dakar 2018. The Repsol Rally Team driver completed the Morocco Rally this Tuesday with outstanding results: 23rd place overall and 8th in his category. The rider from Lérida assures that he was “extremely satisfied” with the performance of his Sodicars Racing BV6 prototype, which has adapted hand controls on the steering wheel.
Isidre Esteve and his entire team travelled to Morocco to be able to ride the new 4×4 in conditions that are similar to those they will find in South America in January. The great unknown was to see how his new car — with a 3-litre, 335-hp BMW biturbo diesel engine — performed on the dunes. And, as the driver himself claims, it exceeded his expectations with flying colours after six days of competition and more than a thousand timed kilometres.
“We are going home very happy with the feelings we have had and the work of the entire team. This rally has been an incredible learning opportunity with regard to the next Dakar. The new car drove very well over the dunes, as we have been able to confirm in the last stage today, and this means we can face the future confidently”, Isidre Esteve said, satisfied.
The last day, divided into two timed sectors, was anything but typical for the Repsol Rally Team, which lost quite a bit of time due to a temperature problem. “After going over a crest, a warning light turned on and remained stuck in red, preventing us from seeing the temperature. When we noticed, it was 140°C and the back radiator had broken. My co-pilot, Txema Villalobos, did a great job fixing it. Thanks to his amazing skills as a mechanic, we were able to finish the stage with only the front radiator, though at a slower pace and having lost quite a bit of time”, explained the the rider from Oliana, who finished 33rd in the first special (before the mechanical failure, he was 19th) and 30th in the second.
Despite the unexpected setback in this fifth and final stage, Isidre Esteve completed the Morocco rally positively and with some encouraging results: 23rd overall and 8th in the T1.2 category (modified diesel 4x4s) with an accumulated time of 15 hours, 18 minutes, and 40 seconds. A praiseworthy position, given the high level of participation in this scored test for the FIA World Cup for Cross-Country Rallys.
“Things have happened to everyone in this race, but every day that we’ve spent here, we’ve gone faster and got more confident. The most important thing is that we have always been capable of adapting to each situation and we have taken note of all the little details we need to fix before Dakar”,stated the Repsol and Onyx Seguros driver optimistically.
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