BIŠA – The International Automobile Federation concluded the investigation into the collision between the trucks of Aleš Loprais and Martin Macík in Monday’s 8th stage of the Dakar Rally and decided not to further punish either of the pilots.
Macík’s MM Technology team reported about it on social networks.
“The result of the screening was ‘no future actions required’, which means that none of the participants committed such a violation of rules or regulations that they were in any way affected and penalized for it,” said manager Martin Pabiška.
The collision between the two Czech rivals took place in the dunes, where Macík crashed into Loprais’ stationary truck behind the horizon.
“We were finding the dune, which we didn’t do well, and he reacted late,” stated Loprais in the evening at the finish of the stage, adding that the crew had the safety sentinel on, which alerted the opponent that they were on the track ahead of them. “He took it into us and unfortunately it cost us half of the superstructure and the replacement of the puncture,” said Loprais, who identified Macík as the culprit of the accident.
The winner of the previous two editions of the Dakar Rally defended himself that he could not have prevented the collision shortly after crossing the top of the dune.
“He was standing behind a dune, looking for a (control) point there and he stopped because of a funnel. We didn’t see him, we went through the dunes and suddenly Dave (navigator Švanda) shouted and then a shot.” said Macík, who then stated in an interview for TV Nova that the opponent stopped in a “moronic” place.
After the FIA’s decision, the Macikov team also published images of the collision from the onboard camera in the truck.
- Author: © List/
- Source: CTK
