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Toyota Gazoo Racing SA before their departure for South America

Dakar 2017: Toyota Gazoo Racing SA already in South America

Ahead of the January 2 kick-off of the 2017 Dakar Rally in Asuncion, the capital city of Paraguay, the Toyota Gazoo Racing SA team have already landed in South America for the race.

 Team Principal, Glyn Hall, said the Team had to forgo their Christmas celebration to be on ground early enough for some preparatory work ahead of the race.

“The two Toyota Gazoo Racing SA Hilux were shipped to our partners at Toyota Argentina, north of Buenos Aires, at the beginning of December. However, the cars were partly disassembled for shipping, and now need to be fully reassembled and tested,” he explained .

 In addition to preparing the race vehicles, the crew also needs to prepare the support vehicles and trucks, which follow the entire Dakar route with personnel and spare parts, tools and the infrastructure needed to service the race vehicles each day.

“The Dakar is a truly mammoth undertaking,” Hall added . “Our spares inventory includes more than a thousand items, each catalogued according to a system that makes it easy for the logistics manager to find each part on demand.”

 Once the race vehicles are fully assembled and all the logistics taken care of, Toyota Gazoo Racing SA will travel from Argentina to Asunción in Paraguay for the opening ceremony of the race.

 Toyota Gazoo Racing SA is preparing for the rally with two race proven Toyota Hilux. Car #301 belongs to newcomers to the team, Nasser Al-Attiyah and navigator Mathieu Baumel; while Car #302 is in the hands of Toyota stalwarts Giniel de Villiers and navigator Dirk von Zitzewitz. Al-Attiyah has won the Dakar twice before, while De Villiers/Von Zitzewitz won the first South American edition in 2009.

 As the race gets under way with a short stage from Asunción, Paraguay, on January 2, 2017, Stage 1 will take the teams from Paraguay into the northern regions of Argentina, with a total stage distance of 454 km.

 The first bivouac of Dakar 2017 will be at Resistencia, and the race continues from there into Bolivia and back into Argentina, before concluding in the Argentine capital of Buenos Aires on January 14t, 2017.

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