On the tenth stage of the Dakar Rally, everything is going well for Tim and Tom Coronel until suddenly the left front wheel breaks off. They start tinkering immediately, but have to wait about three hours for the right part. Tim and Tom reach the finish, but seem to miss out on a top twenty ranking.
It was the first bad luck for Tim and Tom. “We have had zero problems so far, but this is part of Dakar. Very unfortunate, but on the other hand, we must make the best of it. From a sporting point of view, we have to say goodbye to the top 20. Sometimes things go well and sometimes things go wrong. This is Dakar,” says Tim.
When the wheel broke off, nothing was wrong. Tom explains: “We rode well, had a good rhythm, all caps were good and we were around the 25th time. On a long straight with no one in front or behind us, the wheel suddenly breaks off. A hard blow, the wheel was a few hundred meters away. It was probably the steering ball or suspension ball. We didn’t make any hard hits or do anything strange, so this was weird.”
Repairing the car was done quite quickly. “We just had to wait for the wheel hub. Normally we have that with us, but not today. The rest we had, we waited two hours and in an hour everything was fine again. Then back on the road in the dark. The navigation was seriously difficult then, but it all went well. We are at the finish line, that is the most important thing.”
The eleventh and penultimate stage of the rally is scheduled for tomorrow. This goes from Al Ula to Yanbu and is 420 kilometers long. It is a stage with many sharp stones, but also some sand.
