“I’m going home now. It was a very strong blow, because from leading the Dakar with a lead of 1 and 2 minutes, to being disqualified”, Oriol Mena lamented the MD, who was from Doha airport (Qatar), in the stopover before his return flight to Barcelona. Two days earlier, he led the Dakar general classification in the Challenger category (formerly T3) as navigator for the raid’s young prodigy, the 19-year-old Pole Eryc Goczal. Together they won the T4 category last year in Eryk’s Dakar debut. And in the marathon phase, after a fantastic absolute Top-5 phase where they slipped past the best Dakar cars with a light prototype, entering the absolute Top-10, they were leaders in the Challenger that with more than an hour’s margin about second. . They will go for their second Dakar against official Taurus or Red Bull drivers.
However, on the day of rest they received unexpected news. They were disqualified from the Dakar for using a carbon clutch disc. According to the FIA, only specific carbon parts can be used in the car and the clutch is not among them. This is how it appears in one of the regulatory points, with a detailed list of elements. However, Oriol Mena assured MD that in another point of regulation, “freedom” is given for the choice of clutches.
According to Mena, the engineer of his structure openly asked in a phone call “the most important technical commissioner of the FIA” if they could assemble this part and his response was affirmative. But apparently, that same commissioner denied that he gave the team the ‘ok’ over the phone. Mena considered that his disqualification was the result of “interests behind it” and that perhaps he “didn’t like Eryk leading the Dakar.”
Oriol Mena explains to MD, in full:
“I start by explaining why we use these clutch discs. A clutch with carbon discs does not affect the performance of the car. It has no power and doesn’t run either, we just use these carbon discs because they are more reliable and because of all the stages until the rest day the mechanics don’t have to dismantle the gearbox every two days to change the stock discs.. The manufacturer of the stock discs is exactly the same as the manufacturer of the carbons, Tilton Engineering, an American brand. The difference is that aluminum discs cost 850 euros and ours cost 8,000. The car manufacturer, to reduce costs, puts aluminum discs. If carbons were cheaper, all the cars coming out of Taurus and competing with the same structure would have carbon discs.”
“Second point: The Taurus engineer, Cyril, called the most important technical commissioner of the FIA to verify that these clutch discs can be mounted on the cars, the commissioner who was present yesterday at the jury meeting, and this person told him that ‘without any problem , you can mount these brake discs. It was by phone call, not by email or message, and therein lies our mistake. This man denied that Cyril, the team engineer, called him to discuss this. He said he ‘doesn’t remember talking to him about this subject.’”
“So, they took the regulation and initially there was a list of parts that were authorized to be made of carbon fiber, and within this list were not the clutch discs. But there is a unique and exclusive article dedicated to the clutch that claims it is ‘free’ (free choice). There is also another article that talks about transmissions, saying they are ‘free’ but have to be made of steel. But the clutch says it’s ‘free’, not saying it can’t be made of carbon. From there, the FIA says that the clutch is not allowed on this list of the permitted elements in which to use carbon fiber and it is automatically thrown out of competition.”
“Suspicious? Man… yes! Having your gearbox sealed in stage 6A, before the start, knowing that in the remaining stage we will open the gearbox and that they are going to disqualify us from the Dakar, because they are very clear about it? Also. There are many interests behind all this, that Eryk will not win a second Dakar, if that is the case because there are still six days left, and he does not want to lead in front of all the officials who car? Well, that’s the reason.”
“We have brought him to Morocco and we have tested him. And we set it from day one. It’s just because of removing the gear from the car that it takes 3 hours of work. And we mount this disc to save work for mechanics. That’s why we consulted the FIA, we went to Morocco and the interests in the offices are what they are.”
“It’s a shame, it feels bad to lead the race like this, we have to lose it and give up trying to win the Challenger category because of this problem. But this is the FIA’s decision. There is nothing we can do. “It costs a lot of money to appeal and the team decided against it.”
“I’m at the airport in Qatar, I’m going home and I’m satisfied with our work. We have once again shown that we are a team to be reckoned with. We achieved absolute 5th in the 6th stage, we finally did, in front of all the official drivers of big cars, from very strong teams. Eryk is a talent, as a person and as a driver. He knows how to manage emotions. This time, it was a heavy blow, but I like to think that, like me, we will come back and make it stronger to really show the reasons why we are the leaders in this Dakar.
Source: La Verdad
I’m Rose Herman and I work as an author for Today Times Live. My expertise lies in writing about sports, a passion of mine that has been with me since childhood. As part of my job, I provide comprehensive coverage on everything from football to tennis to golf.
