Janus van Kasteren set the pace in the Dakar prologue in trucks. The short stage on Friday, which was a kind of warm-up, covered 27km with the start and finish in Al ‘Ula.
The Dutchman who won last year, again aboard an Iveco from the Boss Machinery Team de Rooy FPT, took 19m34s. He beat Ales Loprais (Instaforex Loprais Praga) by just 16 seconds, followed by the Iveco of Mitchel van den Brink (Eurol Rallysport) at 45 seconds.
Jaroslav Valtr (Tatra Buggyra ZM Racing) achieved the fourth fastest time at 59 seconds, just ahead of teammate Pascal de Baar. In the truck category, Portuguese mechanic Armando Loureiro is in Sébastien Fargeas’ MAN (Team Boucou Competition), who finished with the 44th time in the prologue.
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Top ten in the prologue:
