Competing with new BFGoodrich All-Terrain
tires, Volkswagen Race Touareg driver
Giniel De Villiers scored the first Dakar win of his career last
weekend in Buenos Aires. The South African's American teammate Mark Miller followed him across the
line to hand the Volkswagen team a resounding one-two
finish at the first Dakar to take place in South America. For cross-country
rally racing’s benchmark tire brand – BFGoodrich Tires – this year's
result takes its total score to nine Dakar wins.
After taking command two
stages from home, Giniel de
Villiers claimed the 14th and final stage of the 2009 Dakar to
put the seal on his first win on the world's most punishing cross-country rally
event, which was hosted for the first time in Argentina and Chile. The South
African completed the distance with a lead of 8 minutes 59 seconds over his
USA-based teammate Mark
Miller, and 1 hour 46 minutes 15 seconds clear of another
American stalwart, Robby Gordon (Hummer), who joined the Volkswagen/BFGoodrich Tires pair on
the podium.
The German squad, which fielded a line-up of four
race Touaregs, all
competing on BFGoodrich
All-Terrain tires dominated the 2009 Dakar from nearly start to
finish, winning 10 of the 13 stages. The team's Carlos Sainz (VW/BFGoodrich Tires)
topped the leader board for the week but his hopes were all but
lost when he crashed out on SS12.
The All-Terrain tire – which
BFGoodrich Tires
developed for its partner teams VW,
BMW and Mitsubishi – proved extremely competitive over the
event's exceptionally varied terrain, which ranged from smooth, fast-flowing
tracks to towering dunes. While making its Dakar debut in the hands of
BMW's and Volkswagen's
factory crews, the new tire won every stage but one. The only exception was
yesterday's penultimate test which saw victory go to the BFGoodrich Tires Rock T/A
tire.
The new
All-Terrain tire was used competitively for the first time in
2008 and has been designed to deliver improved dune-crossing ability, plus
enhanced resistance to wear. Volkswagen and BMW both nominated
the newcomer for the Dakar, while front-running privateers Tollefsen from Norway and Poland's
Holowczyc were given
the chance to use the All-Terrain tire during the second
half of the event, which notably featured the awesome dunes of the Atacama
Desert. Both drivers went on to finish the rally inside the top-five
overall.
Quotes from Dakar:
Giniel de Villiers (1st, VW/BFGoodrich
Tires)
"I would like to say a big thank you
to BFGoodrich
Tires for
having developed the All-Terrain
tire. It
performed outstandingly in the Atacama Desert and over the sandy northernmost
Argentine stages, especially SS12, which will go down as one of the toughest I
have ever come across in my entire career. Some of the dunes were just gigantic.
Thanks to the BFGoodrich All-Terrain
tire, we
succeeded in climbing them without being stuck and, in most cases, without
having to stop to reduce our tire pressures. Even on the longest stages, we did
not have a single problem with wear and we picked up very few punctures during
the event, despite the huge rocks, we were occasionally forced to clamber over.
The team's decision to nominate a slightly 're-cut' version of the
All-Terrain
tire, with
a small change to the tread pattern to improve the car's handling on those
stages which had a loose top-coating of gravel, turned out to be the ideal
choice…"
Mark Miller
(2nd, VW/BFGoodrich Tires)
"It's been a fantastic rally; a real Dakar, and even
tougher than Africa. The terrain was incredibly varied but our
All-Terrain tires took everything in their stride. I really only
had one puncture, and that was after swiping a rock hard. One puncture after
more than 5,000km of stages is a truly exceptional
achievement."
Dominique Serieys (Mitsubishi
Team Manager)
"Before the start, we opted to nominate the
BFGoodrich Rock T/A
tire for our four
Mitsubishi Racing
Lancers competing on this
year's Dakar. That was the drivers' preference and we take full responsibility
for the decision. As it turned out, though, it was actually perhaps the best
choice for us given where we stand with the development of our new car. We will
continue to work closely with our partner BFGoodrich Tires in the course of 2009 as we start to turn our
attention to the 2010 Dakar."
Dominique Bravy
(BFGoodrich Tires Technician)
"The BFGoodrich Tires All-Terrain tire has been unanimously acclaimed by all our
driver-partners who ran this new product on what turned out to be an
exceptionally difficult Dakar as far as tires were concerned. The weather was
hotter than we were accustomed to in Africa and the combination of the high
average speeds of the early part of the rally, plus the trials that followed and
the towering dunes, which marked the second week, made this event a unique
challenge. We had always been hoping for victory, of course, but the bottom line
of the past two weeks in South America is extremely positive for
BFGoodrich
Tires. The
All-Terrain tire turned out to be durable and highly competitive
over sand, while at the same time delivering a more comfortable ride for the
crews. In addition to our overall success, BFGoodrich Tires claimed victory in the T2 category, too,
thanks to Nicolas
Gibon whose
Toyota was equipped with the new BFGoodrich Tires
Mud-Terrain."
Using motorsports as a proving ground for more than 30 years, BFGoodrich Tires is involved in every type of racing, including oval, sports car, drifting, drag, desert, dirt, rally, and extreme rock crawling. BFGoodrich Tires combines technological expertise with vast motorsports experience, delivering a high-performance tire for every type of vehicle. Visit BFGoodrich Tires online at www.bfgoodrichtires.com.
