Dakar
Loprais Tatra Team retires from event
Published: Jan 13, 2011, 10:17 PM
Copy link
Share on Viber
The race is over for Ales Loprais after Stage 9.
After technical problems in Stage 9, the crew is forced to withdraw from the Dakar rally after reaching stunning podium placements all over the race so far.
Tatra No. 504 experienced its first technical troubles of the race in Stage 9, having started behind the duo of leading Kamaz trucks. Ales Loprais maintained a solid 3rd place as usual, ready to strike when needed. However, at km 77 the truck stopped with a broken turbocharger. The breakdown was not repairable on spot as the race truck is not carrying a spare charger in the special. Consequently, the truck lost 70 per cent of its power and with that limitation it was extremely hard to cross dune filed and sand mountains, on top of which the organisers placed numerous waypoints. The situation was growing tougher as reaching the dunes was increasingly compliucated. Some dunes had to be jumped and on one of them the crew broke a shock absorber. Finally it reached the finish of the special, some 2h48min behind the winner, Kabirov. The missed waypoints, however, resulted to exclusion from the race. The Tatra crew had drawn many sympathies even by competitors who jointly asked the jury for keeping Ales Loprais in the race but the jury made no compromise. The Kamaz trio is now leading the race as it aimed originally and the only serious contender and challenger of Kamaz is our of the race.
"I would like to express many thanks to all of our partners and supporters who pushed us to reach the aim we set at the beginning of the race. In fact, we succeeded and followed that aim until the critical moment. Unfortunately, the truck lost much of its power to cross the dunes we faught with but the risk and danger of getting stuck forever or of flipping the truck on tops of dunes was too high. Of course we must respect the decision of the jury. But the initiative of some of our competitors was truly remarkable," Ales Loprais said.
"Many thanks go also to my team," Ales continues," Milan Holan, my race mechanic and actually designer and constructor of our race truck, and Josef Kalina for sharing so much of his experience and great navigation. Three mechanics from the assistance truck, Radim Pustejovsky, Jaromir Halfar and Leo Loprais are to receive credit for their excellent maintenance work in the bivouacs."
So, after a marvelous ride and hard battle for top spots in the ranking, the race is over for Ales Loprais. Unfortunately, the problem came unexpectedly in the furthermost spot of the stage at dune fileds. on a hard surface, the stage could have been finished, slowly but surely.
"Although this year we got stopped by technical reasons, I am proud of what we achieved in the course of the race.The results so far gave us proof we were on the good track to our goal. It is sad now but ceratinly it is a new energy for the future." Ales concludes.
Many thanks to all who supported us throughout the race.
-source: lopria tatra team
We want your opinion!
What would you like to see on Motorsport.com?
Take our 5 minute survey.
- The Motorsport.com Team
Read and post comments
Read also :
Share Or Save This Story
Copy link
Share on Viber
Previous article BMW X-raid stage 10 report
Next article BMW X-raid stage 11 report
Top Comments
There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?
View More & Comment
More from
Ales Loprais
Dakar 2016 runners and riders: Cars and Trucks
Dakar
Dakar
Dakar 2016
Dakar 2016 runners and riders: Cars and Trucks
The eight stage is done for the Instaforex Loprais Team
Dakar
Dakar
Dakar
The eight stage is done for the Instaforex Loprais Team
Newsletter Instaforex Loprais Team: Seventh stage Iquique – Marathon Bivouac
Dakar
Dakar
Dakar
Newsletter Instaforex Loprais Team: Seventh stage Iquique – Marathon Bivouac
Latest news
M-Sport’s 2027 WRC Fiesta Kit car breaks cover
WRC
WRC WRC 1 h
M-Sport’s 2027 WRC Fiesta Kit car breaks cover
Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.
From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.
You have 2 options:
- Become a subscriber.
- Disable your adblocker.
Subscribe now Already subscribed? Sign in here
Already disabled your adblocker?
Reload page
Manage Alerts
Subscribe