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Issue #12:January 15, 2021
We’re now in the final stages of Dakar Rally 2021. Stage 10 on the 13th takes place in northwestern Saudi Arabia, with an SS from Neom to AlUla. For TLC Toyota Land Cruiser 200, car #340 with Akira Miura and Laurent Lichtleuchter came in 44th place overall in the car category, while Ronald Basso and Jean-Michel Polato in car #345 came in 46th place overall.
The Neom to AlUla stage was also a part of last year’s Dakar Rally. This year, the 342 km SS started after an 83 km liaison from the bivouac in Neom that headed inland to the hills. After the SS, the liaison took them another 159 km to the mountains, back to the bivouac in AlUla. The terrain was an even mix of gravel and sand. There were some sandy hills with thick grass and places where it was hard to speed up, but the distance wasn’t too long, and it was a smoother run than the previous day.
Thanks to Lichtleuchter’s accurate navigation, car #340 got through the difficult start of the stage. Later on, they had a small accident where they came into contact with a truck, but the damage was minor and there were no major problems. The sand was hiding rocks that can puncture tires, but they made it to the end without any problems. In the beginning of the stage, car #345 ran into dusty conditions created by the cars ahead driving along the ruts, so they had some difficulty picking up the pace as planned. However, after getting halfway they made good progress. It was a trouble-free finish with no punctures.
The AlUla bivouac is surrounded by mountains in all directions and is situated on a plateau at an elevation of 600 meters where the temperature drops to less than 10 degrees at night. When the TLC cars arrived, it was already around seven o’clock and the sun had set. For the 14th, the 47 km section at the end of the route heading south to Yanbu was shortened, bringing the distance down to 466 km, which is still quite long. There is news that we need to clear 100 km of dunes. It looks like it’s going to be the final obstacle in the rally.
At the end of this stage, both TLC cars had the following cumulative rankings: Car #340 is in 39th place overall, and car #345 is in 41st place overall. Over the years, the difficulty level of the courses in the Dakar Rally has increased, and recently it’s becoming more challenging for production category cars to finish the rally due to the many limitations regarding what can and can’t be modified.
In this year’s rally, TLC is the only team that continues to race in the production car category, but the whole team remains fully focused on achieving the unprecedented eight consecutive victories in the category.
Miura (driver): I thought there’d be rough roads like on the previous day, but it wasn’t so bad and we finished the stage quite smoothly. There are only two days left, but personally, I wish I could drive more. I’ll be doing my best to stay focused for the rest of the rally.
Basso (driver): Today was also quite a challenge with the severe dust, but after getting halfway, the cars spread out and we could drive more smoothly. Thankfully, we also had no punctures. It was a good day.