Dakar

Dakar: X-raid BMW stage 16 report

The Last Loop Our goal for this year's Dakar was a place in the top-ten. 17 days of competition, 16 tough stages, more than 9,000 kilometres, sand, sweat and more now lie behind the drivers. 'A Dakar is never easy', these words have been heard ...

Edited: Jan 18, 2005, 10:15 AM

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The Last Loop
Our goal for this year's Dakar was a place in the top-ten.

17 days of competition, 16 tough stages, more than 9,000 kilometres, sand, sweat and more now lie behind the drivers. 'A Dakar is never easy', these words have been heard often enough, even from the best drivers, and couldn't be more fitting for this year's Dakar. This makes reaching the finish even more satisfying for everyone who has conquered all of the challenges. The last loop, on the beach and around Lac Rose, was once again a kind of 'exhibition run' for the teams.

The Spanish X-raid duo José Luis Monterde and Rafael Tornabell finished 9th overall. José Luis Monterde, who was en-route in the BMW X5 for the first time, at the finish: "It's always nice to end a Dakar Rally in Dakar. I had bigger plans but this rally is simply very unpredictable. Visibility was quite poor almost the entire time. Due to the strong winds, a permanent dust curtain hung in the air like fog. We even experienced rain in the desert and because of it the conditions were in parts completely different than we were used to and had expected. We had a scare when we rolled the car, but luckily there wasn't any mentionable damage and we were able to keep on driving. All in all, it was a very strenuous but very diverse rally as well. The car was perfectly prepared and my thanks go to the entire team who worked here with great dedication under great stress."

Team manager Sven Quandt: "Our goal for this year's Dakar was a place in the top-ten and we reached that with a solid 9th place from José Luis Monterde. You can't appreciate his performance highly enough considering that José was, for a time, in 45th place. He continually worked his way back to 9th place, leaving a number of top-drivers behind in the process. When you see the strength represented on the field this year, we can be truly satisfied - after all. For Nasser Al-Attiyah, a place in the top-five would have probably even been possible. He displayed an exceptional performance all the way up to his exit and it's a pity he didn't make it to the finish. Once again, the BMW X5 proved to the competition its profound dependability. I believe this was underestimated by some and, except for a couple of trifles, we didn't have any significant problems during the entire Rally. My thanks for the good cooperation and a big compliment goes to the whole team as well. We put together this international team on short notice and they harmonized outstandingly well, even under difficult conditions. With CORONA EXTRA we've got the perfect sponsor to enjoy a good beer this evening and we'll surely take advantage of that".

-bmw-

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