“We obtained caught [in the sand] as a result of we have been taking it [too] simple,” he mentioned post-stage. “All the things goes effectively, that’s a very powerful [thing].
“I’ve an excellent place for tomorrow, I hope. No stress, I hope every thing will go effectively.”
On the flip facet, there’s Lategan whose plan was additionally to not place excessive on the stage and subsequently be one of many crews opening the street within the penultimate stage, a 257km take a look at by the dunes round Shubaytah.
“It was not the plan to go shortly as we speak, we have been truly going at a really good and regular tempo after which [Martin] Prokop got here previous us, so we thought ‘okay, possibly we’re going too gradual’ so we adopted him,” Lategan mentioned.
“We’ll see, hopefully there are another guys behind us who’re faster in order that they’ll open tomorrow, however all in all, not too unhealthy.
“The trick is now we’d like an excellent street place for tomorrow, we actually, actually need some guys which are faster than us in order that we don’t need to open the stage tomorrow. That’s the one fear that’s nonetheless left.”
Nani Roma and Alex Haro Bravo gained the stage, giving M-Sport Ford an historic first-ever Dakar stage victory, however that reality was secondary to the context of the victory struggle.
Roma’s team-mate Mattias Ekström nonetheless hangs onto third place within the total classification, having profited from a navigation error from Dacia’s Nasser Al-Attiyah and Edouard Boulanger round 10km into the stage.
