Stage 4 of Dakar 2018 will long be remembered as one of the toughest stages ever served up by the world’s toughest automotive race. The 330 km-long stage started some 114 km from the bivouac at San Juan de Marcona, and was run mainly on soft dunes. For Toyotagazoo racing SA, the dunes quickly turned into torture. The leading Toyota Hilux of Nasser Al Attiyah/Mathieu Baumel fell foul to multiple punctures, with the Qatari driver and his French navigator having to stop twice to change tyres. Their woes didn’t stop there, however, as they also got badly stuck on more than one occasion, and lost 54:21 on the day.
