Driver and rider selected quotes after Dakar stage 12 13.01.2023: Sébastien Loeb: “It was a perfect day: no mistakes, no stalling, no about turns. We drove well and the car worked perfectly. Second place is our goal, that’s why we’re pushing. I prefer to be in the situation we are in now than the one in the first week.

Sébastien Loeb: “It was a perfect day: no mistakes, no stalling, no about turns. We drove well and the car worked perfectly. Second place is our goal, that’s why we’re pushing. I prefer to be in the situation we are in now than the one in the first week.


We’ve made a big comeback. In general, we’ve had a good rally, but we haven’t had much luck. But that’s just the way it is. I didn’t think we’d manage to climb back up to second. I thought we could get fifth place, but three excellent drivers like Carlos, Stéphane and Yazeed were removed from the equation. So, from then on, I was aiming for second place.”




Nasser Al-Attiyah: “It’s good to finish the marathon stage and bring the car back in good condition. If we finish in the Top 5 each day, that’s OK for me, we have a big enough lead. I’m happy with our day and I hope we can continue like this. We’ll attack more on the next race!”



Lucas Moraes: “This Marathon Stage was tough, so many big dunes to cross. I think my lack of experience showed a few times. What is great is making it to the end of these two days. We’re still on the podium so we will fight hard to hold this place until the rally ends in two more days.”
 


Mattias Ekstrom: “I think it’s a good school for me, driving here. I’m very happy. No technical issues, no problems – everything was working fine. In two places, I chose the wrong route when we were over a dune so I made a little detour, but in general it was very good. We will try and bring the car to the finish, that’s the main goal.”



Toby Price: “The Empty Quarter has delivered what they said it was going to do. There was a lot of sand and a lot of nothing out here. But other than that, the body feels good, the bike feels good. It’s been a long two weeks.”



Daniel Sanders: “Tomorrow, we’ll see where we start, hopefully we’ll be back a bit and push to try and win it, then the last day is reverse order, so it doesn’t matter if you win tomorrow, you start last of the bikes so all the lines are already there. It will be good fun.”




Mitch Guthrie Jr.: “Because we lost so much time yesterday, we started as the 134th car onto the stage this morning. Today we had a great day. No problems, the car was fast. I think we overtook about 75 cars and won the stage.”



AJ Jones: “We’ve kept our lead the way it is, so everything is all good over here. For sure, the Empty Quarter is not my favourite – I’m not going to lie – but everyone has to do it, and it is pretty; it’s nice to look at. Sometimes driving in it is a little bit sketchy. So, I’m excited there’s only two more days of it.”



Seth Quintero: “The Marathon Stage treated us pretty well. On day one we kind of just cruised to the finish line inside the Top 5. We ended up moving up to P2 overall on that stage. We’re still an hour off P1 so there’s a lot of work to do there if there’s even a chance for us. We’re going to keep fighting no matter what.”




Ignacio Casale: “It was an excellent stage! The start of this Dakar wasn’t easy for us, we had lots of worries and many problems. But we’re developing a vehicle that has potential and which is promising. We’ve been in the dunes for a few days and I feel good on them, it’s my speciality.”




Chaleco López: “This hasn’t been an easy rally for us, but we’ve kept fighting every day. Now we just have two more stages to go and we’re looking forward to crossing the finish line. Our rally has been stop and start, it’s been difficult to get a good rhythm going. The Dakar can be like this.”
 


Cristina Gutiérrez: “The Marathon Stage was fine for us. We started yesterday with a lot of energy and we had a very good day on the dunes of the Empty Quarter. The car worked perfectly on both days. Now I want to enjoy the final two days of the rally.”
 


Rokas Baciuška: “Finally, just two stages more! Today there were good dunes, big dunes which were fun to drive. It’s really huge, the Empty Quarter – I’ve never been here, so I like that. Today we drove easily to save the car and to bring it safely to the bivouac, so before the last two days they can fix the car and properly check everything. Two days more, just two days more… Pedal to the metal, that’s the only strategy to do.”

    
       

- Christine FIAL-