ℹ️ Stage info ℹ️

YANBU → YANBU

📝 Team De Rooy FPT Kicks off 48th Dakar Rally with Strong Prologue 📝

YANBU – With a second-place finish for Vaidotas Žala and fifth place for Aleš Loprais, Team de Rooy kicked off the 48th Dakar Rally on a high note Saturday in the truck category.

Both drivers are among the favorites for overall victory in Saudi Arabia, and their results on the short loop around Yanbu showed that their Iveco trucks have plenty of speed.

📝 #604 Nørdis Team de Rooy FPT 📝

Žala finished the 22-kilometer special just three seconds behind prologue winner Mitchel van den Brink. He would have preferred the win, of course, but the Lithuanian truck driver was in excellent spirit at the Yanbu bivouac.

“We missed first place by just three seconds. Second place feels really good,” he said. “We’re so happy to be back at the start line—the feeling is good. We’re in great spirits heading into the race. The truck feels good and it’s dialed in. We’ve got a great machine and an experienced crew.”

Sure, coming up three seconds short stung a little, but he also knew the Yanbu result only determined starting position for Sunday’s first stage. “The rally hasn’t even started yet. Starting first or second makes no difference. I’m just really happy today.”

The speed of his Iveco certainly looks promising. Still, he wasn’t getting ahead of himself. “This is my eleventh Dakar, so I know how to manage my expectations. Speed is one thing, but you have to be able to keep it up the whole time. We’ll do our best and see what happens.”

📝 #602 Instatrade Loprais Team de Rooy FPT 📝

Team manager Henk van Leuven: “I thought it was a perfect opening for what I expect to be a very exciting Dakar Rally. Not much else to say about it. The drivers are calling it ‘a good warm-up,’ but tougher than expected. Žala and Loprais are really happy.“

“The real party starts tomorrow.”

Results

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