After suffering the breakdown of the powerful Ford V8 engine of his Raptor T1+ in the dantesque second stage of 48 Hours, and after suffering an accident in the 5th stage yesterday, Nani Roma (Folgueroles, 1972) arrives at the rest day in Ha’il with a discouraged air and a dejected countenance.
Facing the second part of his 28th Dakar he no longer has the incentive or motivation of being able to fight for his third Tuareg. Out of competition, the Catalan driver can only focus on helping his Ford teammates Mattias Ekström (3rd overall) and Mitchell Guthrie (6th) to be able to fight for the title against the army of Toyotas and Al Attiyah ( Dacia).
On Ha’il’s rest day, in Ford’s camp, Rome attended to The Vanguard.
The feeling
“I would have liked things to have gone a little better, but we are not here to complain either. “We are here racing, with a good car, and we knew that the first year was difficult”
A stick arrives at the rest day with a broken engine and an accident. It’s not what he had imagined.
No, no, not at all. We started well, with a good race plan: I wanted to be among the top 10 in the prologue and I did it (9th), I wanted to get out front in stage 1, we did it behind Carlos and knowing that those behind us would catch us and We would lose time to face the Chrono 48 Hours, in the double stage we started in the morning with the GPS not working, I had to start 18th and they put me 22nd, once in the dust, we knew how to hold on, then The ‘jacks’ didn’t work when changing wheels, I didn’t change… but even so, in the 300 km of dunes we really attacked, we placed third in the special and leaders of the race. Within the troubles we had, we knew how to stay calm.
But the 48 hour stage arrived…
David Castera came to see us at kilometer 420, “Nani, you’re fucking amazing”… I told him: “David, this changes quickly.” I leave and 50 km later, engine alarm on the dashboard. It was a joke. Our engine lost power, we put oil, we continued, we returned to third place. We managed well, we competed well, and the engine stopped.
A reliability problem, because it is a very new engine?
No no. The other Ford drivers have not had that problem. Motorsport is hard. The engines are the same and one part that breaks, breaks another part. There are no culprits. It’s the races. We stayed there, lying there for five hours, the assistance truck came to look for us. We repaired and left the next day with another mission: to be behind Mitch and Mattias, and help them.
-And before the break, an accident when hitting another car.
It wasn’t my fault, nor his. It is a question of organization, since we did not have the anti-collision system, which has to be put in place no matter what, in this type of Dakar in which you have to go looking for points (CP) all the time. You leave one and you have to come back. They put it on the first day and the system broke all of our GPS. Then they removed it. But they must put it back because there will be some serious accident.
How was the accident?
We left a point on the left, when we were 300 meters away, I saw a straight track, I accelerated, and a car came out to look for the point. We collide. Luckily we had parts in the car and we repaired it. We did 250 km with a single shock absorber. In the end we went hard so as not to arrive too late at night.
What is being most difficult about this Dakar?
We knew it would be a tough Dakar. The 48 hours on the second day are too much for me, because it has left many people out at the beginning. I told Castera. But I also knew that it could be a very good race for me, because I like this type of rally. It’s a shame, I was talking about it with Carlos: it was a very good year. But what has a solution is a problem. I’m still here, we’re going to help the kids, give them confidence with a fast car behind (assist). I’m here for them. And I keep trying things in the race.
What feeling do you have? A missed opportunity?
Well, I’ve been in this business for 28 years. When you know him so much you know how ungrateful he is sometimes. I have never worked as much on a project as I did on this Ford one. I would have liked things to have gone a little better, but we’re not here to complain either. Life is like that. We are here racing, with a good car, and we knew that the first year was difficult. At least, let the energy and time you have put in have results. They are not going to go for more or less because of the result. I have moved very little for money. I feel the frustration of having lost a great opportunity with Ford and of not being able to fight to win races. But next year more and better.
Ekström’s option
“I think Mattias has options, if he continues at this pace more things will happen. It would be nice. But nothing changes everything.
Mattias Ekström is third, 20 minutes behind. Do you think you have a chance of winning?
I think so, because the two drivers in front of him (Lategan and Al Rajhi) are not very consistent. Nasser still has a lot to say, but he has to risk to make up 35 minutes and his Dacia is also very new. Lategan is not a super driver in the dunes and there are two very hard days left. Yazeed is super fast, but he is not consistent. I think that if Mattias continues at this pace, more things will happen. It would be nice. But nothing changes everything.
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