Giniel De Villiers has fallen for it again. 24 hours after the first maneuver that led him to run over a motorcyclist, he repeated himself, hitting another motorcyclist in the next stage without rescuing him. For having committed the same infringement in the same edition of the Dakar and, moreover, within 24 hours, the South African of Toyota was penalized for 5 hours.
In Stage 1 De Villiers had hit the Chilean Cesar Zumaran at low speed and left without helping him after hitting him while he was standing in a narrow stretch of the desert between sand and rocks.
The second maneuver, however, was much more serious. De Villiers found the Moroccan driver Mohamedsaid Aoulad Ali on his way, coming down from a dune. Although he was able to avoid the rider, he hit the spot in his KTM, entrusted to him by the Morocco Racing Team.
After the impact between the two vehicles, the Moroccan’s KTM was found to be unusable for the entire course of the second stage. Yesterday De Villiers was called by the race officials to give him the opportunity to defend himself.
“We have not heard any warning signals from Sentinel. We do not doubt that we have received a signal. The problem is that the Sentinel button is located on the floor on the co-pilot’s side. During a complex stage section, the co-pilot’s feet jump forward. and back and they can easily, accidentally push the button. When we got over the dune, we saw the motorcyclist and I avoided him so as not to hurt him. “
“At the bottom of the dune, we turned around to make sure the rider wasn’t injured. We didn’t realize we hit his bike when we landed. Then we continued the stage. We are very embarrassed that such a thing has happened again. . We apologize very much for this accident. We are also willing to offset the cost of rebuilding the bike, “explained the South African.
De Villiers has in fact reached an agreement with the Moroccan rider to pay him the replacement costs of the destroyed bike and the registration for the Dakar 2023. The Moroccan driver said he was satisfied with the agreement reached with the South African of Toyota.
The commissioners, however, considered that De Villiers has infringed article 12.2.1.h of the FIA International Sporting Code, for this reason he has taken an overall penalty of 5 hours which cuts him completely out of the fight for the victory and the fight for the podium. Until yesterday he was in fourth position, just 2 “from third place and 49 minutes behind leader and teammate Nasser Al-Attiyah.
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