RALLY DAKAR 2018
Dakar, Step 5: Yazeed Al-Rajhi planted the Mini in the Pacific Ocean
There are many things that Sven Quandt could count on in the Dakar, even though he 'ran out' of a car when one of his riders wanted to go for a ride in the dunes and ... broke the whole car (Guerlain Chicherit) on a day of rest. This time, after Yazeed Al-Rajhi had the misfortune of beating the desert against another car of the team, that of Filipe Palmeiro, this time the Saudi Arabian pilot 'jumped' with his Mini X-Raid buggy ... in the waters of the Pacific Ocean.The car was saved, but the pilot lost almost two hours. He left there 'salty', but washed. What happened is simple, the pilot drove a little too close to the water, exaggerated, got trapped ... and the waves and the sea did the rest. A little while longer he was going to keep company with Arizona, at Pearl Harbor, in Hawaii ... Timo Gottschalk had to tie the car up with a rope, basically ... he tied it to the one closest to him, another car. Until Boris Garafulic and Filipe Palmeiro arrived, who took them from there. Second chapter of a friendship 'built' days before, due to the many hours spent together in the desert. It was Mikko Hirvonen who later towed the car to the bivouac: "There were two tire marks on the sand, unfortunately, we chose the wrong one," Al-Rajhi explained.
José Luis Abreu, direto de Portugal
