DAKAR 2023
MEDIA FEATURES
NEWS 24 - DAY 9 REPORT

Century Racing, one of the South African teams participating in the 2023 Dakar rally, is enjoying a good race as the event takes its mandatory rest day after eight gruelling stages.

One of the team's drivers Brian Baragwanath and his co-driver Leonard Cremer are currently eighth overall. However, they are leading the T1.2 4x2 class in their CR6-T Audi. The rest day could not have come at a better time for them as the last three stages have put them to the ultimate test.

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On Thursday (5 January), Baragwanath and Cremer rolled their CR6-T, forcing the team to work through the night to repair it. The incident was a wake-up call as they took extreme care in approaching the next few days.

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"We had a good last few days," Baragwanath reported after Stage 8.

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"Our clutch started slipping on the last 100km on Friday, so we backed off, but we still suffered a puncture only a kilometre from the finish. We lost maybe 5 minutes to end up tenth and move back into the top ten overall. Luckily the clutch didn't fail completely.

"Sunday was tough; we tried too hard not to get a puncture and still got two in the first 80km. We hardly pushed from there, but finished to fight another day. Now we look forward to coming back even stronger next week!"

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• Century Racing standings after 8 stages

• Category: Cars

• 8. Car #216 | (ZAF) Brian Baragwanath and (ZAF) Leonard Cremer

• 11. Car #209 | (FRA) Mathieu Serradori and (FRA) Loic Minaudier