The Dakar 2018 has lived your day’s rest in Peace after six intense hard days of racing. The deserts of Ica and Tanaka have brought a dose of toughness ever seen in the test since it moved to South america and that has been noticed in the list of dropouts. With only six stages and with eight days yet to be celebrated, there are already a total of 81 participants out of the race. A figure really high that is divided in the abandonment of 29 ‘motards’ and 8 riders of quads, as well as the low of the crews of 30 cars, and 1 UTV and 13 trucks.
In the motorcycle category, the race has claimed the aspirations of the 29 pilots. Some were serious candidates to victory as Sam Sunderland and others were called to fight for the ‘top ten’ as Adrien Metge. However, from Juergen Droessiger -first abandonment – up to Jeri As -last-, there are dozens of story behind it. In key Spanish, the ‘motards’ that are out of the race are Ignacio Sanchis, Chus Puras, Jose Israel Borrel, Jairo Segarra and Julián José García Merino. As a curious note, none of the riders of legend are present in the category of two-wheelers have had to leave.
quads and UTV’s have been the categories that have been least affected by the dropouts, at least in absolute numbers, as the proportion of participants is very low in relation to other categories. In any case, 8 quads are out of the race, in the same way that there are 1 UTV that has not reached the rest day. Among the quads the two lower most talked about have been the Sergei Karjakin, current champion of the category, and the Rafal Sönik, one of the candidates to victory. For his part, the Portuguese Pedro de Mello has been the only casualty among the UTV.
30 are the cars that are out of the Dakar official, among them several riders that no doubt were going to fight for big goals. Bryce Menzies left in the second stage after a strong accident, while Nani Roma said good-bye to the test in the third stage. Ronan Chabot, André Villas-Boas, Emiliano Spataro, or Christian Lavieille have also been eliminated, like Sebastien Loeb after a strong hit that caused an injury of the coccyx to Daniel Elena. All these names are in addition the Spanish Xavi Foj, femininity Alicia Queen and surely ‘Orly’ Terranova, although the latter has not been officially confirmed.
finally, 13 are the trucks that are no longer part of the Dakar caravan. Despite the great experience that you treasure one of the participants, the ‘elephants in the desert’, have suffered greatly in the stages of the peruvian. Yoshimasa Sugawara or Georges Ginesta have not managed to overcome the first week of competition, as does the truck run by the Spanish Jordi Juvanteny. However, two of the dropouts most prominent came in the fifth stage, the whole time Ales Loprais and Martin Van Den Brink were out of the race. Both were the best options of Tatra and Renault to break the hegemony of Kamaz.
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