Fast but not furious

You see a lot of huge yellow trucks with Boucou written down the side in the Dakar bivouac, but you don’t see much mention of them in the media. And that’s because they aren’t on the race to win anything for themselves, but rather they’re there to contribute to other teams’ success. Jose, Eric and Simon aboard their Iveco Trakker, for example, are entered on the Dakar uniquely to provide the Audi team with rapid assistance on the piste to their ground-breaking RS Q e-tron E2 cars. It means that their job is to drive as fast as they possibly can without damaging their truck, so as to get to an Audi stopped on the special as quickly as possible. To fulfil their mission these St Bernards of the Dakar need to be multi-talented: excellent mechanics, capable of working quickly, under extreme pressure and also fast but careful drivers, certain to get their truck to the bivouac every night. Jose and Jeremie share the driving, taking the wheel alternate days and both have vast experience. Jose has 14 Dakars to his name while Jeremie was literally born into the sport, his father Raphaël driving a truck for Mitsubishi for 30 Dakars! Gimbre Junior has ‘only’ 9 Dakars on the scoreboard but in between truck driving works as a freelance race mechanic for –yes, you guessed it– Audi Sport. Because of the specificities of the Audi car, navigator Eric has also been on a special course at X-Raid the team responsible for running the Audi cars.

J.G.: “Our job is all about finding the balance between speed and reliability. And even if we have a deep love of motorsport and competition, we have to put our own egos aside and place ourselves entirely at the service of our customers. In the truck we mainly carry suspension parts and wheels. Those are the elements that usually get damaged in rally-raid and which can be changed relatively quickly. Once we get to the car that needs assistance the drivers know that their chance of winning have but not necessarily a place on the podium. But it is important that they can get to the end of the special and continue the race the next day to help their teammates. The drivers we assist are professionals and know that we have a difficult job. They might not want to see us on the special but when they do they are always polite and courteous.”