“We will be able to fight face to face against the new elite of the specialty in the Dakar, the toughest competition in the world”
BARCELONA 22 (EUROPA PRESS)
The Repsol Rally Team confirmed this Thursday that the driver Isidre Esteve will race with a Toyota Hilux T1+, “very similar” to the winner of the last edition of the Dakar Rally and that allows them to have “one of the 50 cars of the highest level” of the Test.
“We are joining the T1+ category, the most competitive of the Dakar, with one of the 50 cars of the highest level that the event will have. We have taken a very important step forward,” said Esteve in statements provided by the Repsol Rally Team.
The driver from Lleida will premiere his new vehicle at the Morocco Rally at the end of next week, which will only change the engine of the winning car of the last Dakar. “With this car, the Repsol Toyota Rally Team will be in a position to fight face to face against the new elite of the specialty in the toughest competition in the world”, he pointed out.
The accumulated Dakarian experience and, in particular, the experiences of 2022 forced the Repsol Toyota Rally Team to bet on the T1+ category. “The cars in this division represent an important leap forward at a technical level. If we wanted to continue growing and be competitive, we had to get hold of one of these units, and we have achieved it,” he added.
The service record of the Toyota Hilux T1+ in the Dakar is impeccable. It is presided over, of course, by the absolute triumph in the 2022 edition of Nasser Al-Attiyah and the third place of Yazeed Al-Rajhi, successes to which must be added the presence of four other twin models in the ‘Top-10’ of the final classification, which made the Japanese vehicle the most reliable in the competition.
In this way, Isidre Esteve and Txema Villalobos will begin their journey with the new mount next week in some tests in North Africa. The team’s competition debut will take place on Saturday, October 1, at the Morocco Rally, with the renewed support of Repsol, MGS Seguros, KH-7 and Toyota, through Toyota Gazoo Racing Spain.