Saturday 13 January
7th stage: La Paz – Uyuni
Total: 727 km – Special: 425 km
We apologize for the delay of information but so is the Dakar… Saturday, during the marathon stage which arrived in Uyuni, the news of the crew of the Buggy 2WD arrived while the internet connections were already cut and yesterday, the bivouac of Tupiza being underwater, there was not even an internet network nor telephone and the competitors settled down.
In the marathon stage (without assistance) on Saturday, Eugenio Amos / Sébastien Delaunay #335 burned the clutch of the Buggy 2WD in the mud of stage 7. Many competitors were “planted” at this location and the trucks travelled on another route. No one managed to get the 2WD buggy out of the muck, as the clutch was completely blown. The Dakar organization then evacuated the crew for safety reasons. Amos arrived at the bivouac of Uyuni late in the evening and was terribly disappointed because he had done a very nice race.” I tried not to force,”he explains,” death in the soul but the mud, the wet sand and altitude got the clutch right. It’s a shame because in Peru we did a great race with the Buggy 2WD which was really good and I was looking forward to the Argentine tracks…”
As for Sébastien Delaunay, he was taken by helicopter by the organization up to CP2, then the police dropped him off in a village on the road to Challapata, where he was boarded the next day in a press car to join Tupiza.
The mechanics of the 2WD team then went to fetch the Buggy and asked for the help of a tractor from a nearby village to get it out of this bad step, repair it and courageously take the road to Tupiza and then Salta. The Dakar is not only a challenge for mechanics and competitors but also for the technical teams.
The Dakar 2018 will be marked by a white stone because it is terribly hard. Eugenio Amos and Sébastien Delaunay did an extraordinary race with a beautiful 5th place in the loop San Juan de Marcona and the buggy, in the immense and demanding Peruvian dunes, as well as on the fast tracks, proved its potential. But you also need a bit of luck to finish this extreme race…
Now, the 2WD technical team will focus on future races and refining the second 2WD buggy that is being built in Boze workshops and will be available for the first round of the FIA Cross Country Rally World Cup in Abu Dhabi.
