“Top 5 is a victory for our team”
It'll be big number 25 for Brazilian legend André De Azevedo. After 10 Dakar rallies on a bike, one in car and 14 in his Tatra truck, the 52-year-old will celebrate one quarter of a century on the World's toughest rally. In his last 6 appearances on the Dakar, André De Azevedo had never finished outside of the Top 10, including 2nd spot in 2003, his best performance. So consider the last two editions as bad habits. Last year De Azevedo suffered steering problems that forced him to quit on the way to Iquique after hitting a sand dune. In an improved Tatra with his usual co-drivers Jaromir Martinec and Justo Maykel, all he now wants to focus on is the finish line. Ambitions will certainly come as days go by.
“2010 and 2011 were bad years, failing to finish. In 2012 we are optimistic and excited to discover the difficulties of a new edition as well as the Peruvian tracks, that will be new for everybody. Our first goal is finishing the race and achieve the Top Ten in the truck class. We updated the Tatra system direction, the suspensions and we made a better distribution of the weight for better balance on curves. Every year we look for more training, tests and better equipment. But the Dakar is very unpredictable and we'll try to have the fewer problems possible. I don't think we can directly compete with the Kamaz trucks, because they have more power and better performances, as well as a huge support team, however Chagin and Kabirov, very good pilots, will no longer be present. Perhaps against the beginners, we have more chances on decisive moments…”
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