Fernando Alonso says that he will tackle the first few stages of his Dakar debut “on tiptoes” after finishing 11th fastest on the opening day in Saudi Arabia.
The two-time world drivers’ champion, two-time 24 Hours of Le Mans winner, and Indianapolis 500 starter, had already branded Dakar “undoubtedly the biggest” challenge of his career to date, and intends to maintain a cautious approach at least for the first week of the event.
“We had a day not without complications, because everyone had them and that will be the case every day, but we’ve tried to keep the problems as minor as possible,” said Alonso.
“The car went well in the stage, it felt good, I was very comfortable with it and had no scares, as we wanted to start a bit cautiously.
“The idea is to do these first few stages on tiptoes, without any excesses or doing anything strange, just trying to learn more about the race while we are in it and get to know the car and the terrain a bit better.”
The Spaniard was third fastest of the factory Hilux drivers, with 2009 Dakar winner Giniel De Villiers only 14th in his sister Toyota having picked up a puncture along the way.
Alonso nevertheless maintained that he is not pushing until the “jungle” of traffic begins to clear.
“I think they (Dakar regulars) have all been going faster, they’ve just had more mishaps than I have,” he suggested.
“The rhythm is more or less as I expected, I have a little more in the pocket, but it’s not the time to take it out yet.
“Hopefully in the second week there will not be so many cars, so many bikes, so many quads (which started the stage earlier), as it’s a jungle from the mid-stage onwards.
“In the second week we hope to have calmer stages. If we arrive (next week) with the car in perfect condition, we’ll try to push a bit more then.”
Day 2 takes the field from Al Wajh to Neom, for a total of 367km of competitive running.
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