Henk Lategan: “It was extremely rough”

Dakar 2023 | Stage 4 | AL SALAMIYA > AL-HOFUF
January 4 ^th 2023 - 17:22 [GMT + 3]

After a difficult start to the rally, Henk Lategan is starting to find his rhythm, finishing sixth on completion of stage four, seven minutes behind Sébastien Loeb. The South African now finds himself in the top five of the general rankings, ready to pounce and take advantage of the slightest mistake made by the leading lights of the category ahead of him…

“Well, the start, right at the beginning, was not so good because we had two very tough days on the first two days, losing a lot of time, just not finding the rhythm, but then yesterday we finally started getting into the groove and getting our rhythm back. Yesterday was a really nice stage for us and then today was a really, really tough stage. We were quite high up on the road which was very tricky for seeing the lines. It was extremely rough. Peterhansel said it was like a boxing match. We were actually struggling at the beginning. I could see my lack of experience in the dunes was showing today. We were really struggling in the beginning and then he came past us and we could hang on to him and that helped a lot – we gained a lot of experience”.