Stage 5 Merzouga ↔ Finish

The fifth and final stage of this editions’ Rallye du Maroc with 152 km of special stage.

It is as if Alfred Hitchcock wrote the script for this Rallye du Maroc. Martin Macik, the undisputed leader in the rankings, was disqualification and a lot of time loss from Janus van Kasteren…

No one had taken these plot twists into account.

← Stage 4

Recap →

📝 News Reports 📝

🏆 the final victory to Becx Competition Team De Rooy FPT 🏆

This stage consisted almost entirely of dunes. Participants had to complete a loop of 152 km through, and around the famous dunes of Merzouga. Last racing day of Rallye du Maroc.

After the finish, driver Michiel Becx, navigator Edwin Kuijpers and mechanic Wuf van Ginkel were overwhelmed by the fact that they had won the Rally.

Kuijpers about the final stage: “It was a short test with many dunes and in between a number of fast sections through dry riverbeds. It didn’t go wrong per se…”

“…After Macik’s disqualification last night, Janus was at the top and we were second overall.

That’s how we wanted to bring it to the finish and that is why no major risks have been taken in the dunes.

“We got stuck once and lost a few minutes but had no other problems.”

“Then we came across Janus at kilometer marker 110. They had a problem with their trucks’ chassis. We assisted there for a while but we couldn’t help them on the spot. We drove on at a good pace without taking any risks, we hade to finish the last part of this stage still. We drove through the beautifull dunes of Merzouga and when we arrived at the finish we were surprised to find that we had won Rallye du Maroc 2023.🤭👊🏼”

Edwin Kuijpers: “It is of course a shame for Janus, Darek and Marcel, because we would have liked to be on the podium with them on behalf of Team De Rooy. Very surprising for ourselves. We came to learn. It is the first time with this team in the truck. We still lack speed compared to many top players, but that doesn’t matter to us. To finish first, you first have to finish. So we did that,” said the navigator of the winning team.

🏆 Despite bad luck, Van Kasteren wins the World Championship title 🏆

Janus van Kasteren, with navigator Marcel Snijders and mechanic Darek Rodewald on behalf of Boss Machinery Team De Rooy FPT, was the first to start the final stage of Rallye du Maroc.

Now they officially own the title;

“T5 Rally Raid World Champion”

We are extremly proud of this great achievement 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

All in all this year has been full of hard work and payoffs at the end!

Watch Janus and Michiel in their recap-video below

Watch video below

Things went well in the first part of the dunes. “I think we were just in the lead there. But then we heard the hood of the rear superstructure hitting the cabin. Stopped for a moment and walked around the truck. Actually, I didn’t see anything.” Says Janus Van Kasteren.

“We drove further, but the noise kept getting worse. I said, I think we have a chassis problem. It started to sag. Then we could not drive any further and had to use tension straps to strengthen the chassis. We worked on that for about three hours.”

“We skipped the last part of the dunes. Otherwise we were afraid the truck would break in half. To become world champion we had to finish, so that was the most important thing. It happened fifty kilometers before the end, which is of course a shame.”

💪🏼”End of the line: Michiel has won this rally we secured the world title.” 💪🏼

The exciting Rallye du Maroc ended well for all equipes of our team
and the focus and preparations can now be on the Dakar Rally of 2024.

🏁 Ladies finish with third fastest time after nightly ride 🏁

A lot happened during the last stage of the Rallye du Maroc, but Anja van Loon stayed out of trouble in the Iveco Powerstar.After riding through the dunes around Merzouga with the ladies a day earlier in the dark, they are taking no risks today and Anja, Floor Maten and Marije van Ettekoven want to finish.

Ladies Team De Rooy FPT ends the rally with the third fastest time and is the fastest within the entire team.

“That last stage was just very good,” says Anja. “We had to start as the penultimate truck after we had a very long day yesterday.”

“We had repaired the axle and then completed the test. As a result, we had to go through the dunes of Merzouga in the dark and that was really tough. But it was a very good lesson for us, that could also happen during the Dakar, so we just had to do that. Back in the bivouac, the mechanics prepared the truck again for today.”

And during that last stage everything went well. “Floor navigated well and Marije was very sharp with tire management. We have become a really good team. Along the way we saw that many trucks had problems and at the finish we heard that we had set the third fastest time, which I am really very happy with. This was very good preparation for the Dakar Rally.”

We are so proud of Anja, Marije and Floor for their hard work and dedication when “tackling” all challenges along the way