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Finish in time in spite of overheating problems for Tim and Tom Coronel

After the brief warm-up on the opening day, the first serious stage of the 2018 Dakar Rally followed on Sunday. Participants had to deal with a special of over 250 kilometres, for a large part covering huge and treacherous sand dunes. The Coronel brothers occasionally got stuck in the loose sand in the early part of the stage. They were not the only ones: once, the twins found themselves among about a dozen of other teams that had got stuck.

On the opening day of the marathon event, Tim and Tom were faced with some technical issues. The fuel overheated and the engine had to be cooled several times as a result. On the second day, things already went considerably better. Tim explained: "The team made quite a few changes during the night to solve the problem. The changes were significant with plenty of extra cooling in the bodywork. The guys have done a great job!"

Unfortunately, it turned out that the problem hadn't been solved completely. Some passionate local fans came out to help the brothers in the middle of the desert. "We met them at CP 2. Tim got some fuel from their tank and we gave them the entire rear bodywork of our car," Tom reported with a smile. "We said to them: ‘Please take care of it and bring it to the bivouac'. And sure enough, they made a detour of at least 50 kilometres to deliver the bodywork. Really cool that he showed up in front of the gate, hat off to him! We hoped that removing the bodywork would reduce the problems, but that wasn't really the case. But anyway, we are back in the bivouac, even before darkness, so that is fine. Tomorrow is another day!"

Tom was equally enthusiastic about the monstrous Dakar machine developed by Damen Jefferies: "So, that was the first cut. What a machine, what a car! It is unbelievable how the car is running, no matter what the conditions are. We only had some technical issues, these need to be sorted. Fortunately, we came back before darkness set in, I didn't fully expect that. The problems were a little bit bigger than we had hoped but that is Dakar for you. Now a night of work to get everything sorted again and then I am fully confident that we will be able to pull of great things. All in all, it was just a solid test run. I am convinced that we will be OK. But what a car, simply unbelievable! I am very, very grateful to my sponsors that I am able to experience this again. When we make it to the finish, I will really go crazy! What a monster of a car!"