Many cars in difficulties during 3rd stage to "Les Dunes de Juifs"

A diverse third stage of the Morocco Desert Challenge turned out to be no easy one for the cars. Initially, the Portuguese Paolo Ferreira seemed to have won the 335 km race, but he received a time penalty of 10 minutes, so the victory again went to Stéphane Henrard, who is in the lead in the joint classification of buggies and 4x4s. In ninth place, Maik Willems was the best Dutch participant, closely followed by Jan Mooij. Erwin Imschoot managed to land on the roof twice in the dunes in just half an hour.

Paolo Ferreira: "I love the dunes. I said yesterday that I wanted to win this day. We drove quietly, did not do crazy things. It was a flawless day, and I certainly want to compliment my navigator Jorge Monteiro, because it was really difficult. "

Maik Willems: "This stage was one of Kaket squared (race leader Jean-Claude Kaket is responsible for the road books, red) in terms of navigation. Very precise, very difficult. Rob (van Pelt) has had his hands full and we often needed a lot of searching and driving around in circles before we found the right track. Erg Chegaga was fun! I would not call it real dunes, but it was nice, soft sand. A nice gift. "

Erwin Imschoot: "In a time span of half an hour, I have been on the roof at the bottom of a dune twice. Unbelievable, right? At the top of the dune, I let go of the gas and then the engine stopped running. That has the same effect as very hard braking and you can no longer steer. Such a dune is three or four meters high, so there is no time to start the car again. We landed on the nose and boom, on the roof. We were put up by my former teammate Jean Pascal Besson. And at the next dune exactly the same happened: on the top I let go of the gas, the engine turns off and hop, there we went again. Back on the roof. Four motorcyclists have helped us push the car back on the wheels. We managed to fix everything that went loose as good and as bad as it went, we have kicked out the windshield, because it was completely cracked, and so we went to the bivouac. It was not at high speed or in a dangerous move. I always drive very carefully in the dunes, but I have never experienced that the car turns off at such a point. I hope the mechanics can manage to get the Toyota Hilux back in order."