RALLY DAKAR 2018

Dakar, Stage 4, Giniel de Villiers: "The Toyota Hilux has never shown signs of weakness, and this increases our confidence"Giniel de Villiers and Dirk von Zitzewitz lost more than an hour yesterday, but from now on they will have to take more chances to make up for lost time in this fourth stage. The current South African cross-country champion lost 1h13m40s, falling to the eighth overall: "It was a story similar to Nasser," De Villiers explained. "Soft holes and dunes have counteracted our attack, but I think we're still in the game. And Toyota Hilux never showed signs of weakness, which increases our confidence, "said the South African.Interestingly enough, now the best of Toyota Gazoo Racing men is the Dutchman Bernhard Ten Brinke, who takes the French navigator Michel Périn to the side: "We had the misfortune to suffer from holes, but this is expected when we race on a mixture of surfaces like of step 4, "said Ten Brinke. "Without the tire inflation / deflation system that buggies use, we always have to compromise tire pressures, and that leads to holes and getting stuck," said Ten Brinke, who went on to 5th in the overall standings, 1:10 : 24 behind Stephane Peterhansel.

"If anyone still had doubts about how difficult this year's Dakar would be, the 4th stage took away all doubts," said Glyn Hall, director of Toyota in Dakar, who saw his two main drivers, Nasser Al Attiyah, who lost 54 minutes and Giniel De Villiers, who gave up 1h13m.
Stage 4 of the Dakar 2018 will be remembered as one of the most difficult of the Dakar. It started with soft dunes, but for the men at Toyota Gazoo Racing, they quickly turned into torture. Nasser Al Attiyah and Mathieu Baumel had to stop twice to change the tires. But their problems did not stop there, and they lost 54:21 on the scoreboard: "Even so, we still feel we are in the fight," said Al Attiyah: "This race is far from over and we will continue to insist."

José Luis Abreu, direto de Portugal