Already a winner, Gautier Paulin was crowned yesterday as the winner of the 2024 edition of the Africa Eco Race. The last stage was marked by the typical arrival at the Pink Lake and the fastest was Pascal Feryn.
Nothing that made a difference in the final classification, since it was essentially a day of consecration. Paulin (Apache) entered the off-road competitions in the best way possible, with an absolute triumph of 3h45m08s ahead of Feryn (Feryn Dakar Team/Toyota). The podium was completed by Carlos Vento (Old Friends Rally Team/Can-Am), with the three of them also securing the titles of their respective classes: T3, T1, and T4.
In trucks, the big winner was Tomas Tomecek (Promet Czechoslovak Group Team/Tatra), in the fourth absolute place of the cars/trucks. The Czech was dominant from the beginning and achieved victory with a margin of over two hours and 15 minutes ahead of Aad van Velsen (Van Velsen Rally Sport/Scania). Frédéric Henricy (AT4R/Polaris) celebrated in the SSV category, in sixth place.
Further down in the top ten were two Portuguese duos: in ninth place Rui Oliveira/Bernardo Oliveira (Old Friends Rally Team/Can-Am) and in tenth place Ricardo Sousa/Jorge Brandão (Old Friends Rally Team/Can-Am). They were respectively second and third in T3. Further down in the classification, Stefano Rossi (Rossi 4×4 ASD/Nissan) is the winner of the EXP category, in 17th place, while Eric Codique (Renault Trucks Rallye Raid/Nissan) is the winner of the OP category in 18th place.
As for the 12th and final stage, Feryn was the fastest in the 15km timed section, surpassing Zingraf by 19 seconds and also leading the T1 and T4 categories, respectively. Varga Imre (Varga Racing Team/Toyota) finished third, with Pierre-Louis Loubet (Apache) in third place leading the T3 ahead of Sousa. Paulin bid farewell with the sixth fastest time ahead of Henricy and, in the trucks, Tomecek won with the 13th overall time of the stage.
Final top ten:
