Isidre Esteve (May 15, 1972, La Seu d’Urgell) faces his 17th Dakar, the 7th by car, with the clear objective of finishing among the top 20. Last year he took a giant leap when he attended the Dakar with a Toyota hilux from Overdrive with the Repsol Rally Team. He could hardly test his vehicle before the appointment and was 28th. This course, after a good preparation, he wants to improve his 21st place in 2018 and 2019 together with his co-driver Txema Villalobos.
How are you feeling before the Dakar?
Delighted that the race is here and that everything is ready.
Does it arrive after making one of your most complete preparations?
I think so. It is true that we made the biggest qualitative leap last year with the car, going to drive a Toyota Hilux for the first year and being able to go with the Overdrive technical service. It was something very important to us. But it is true that with the Covid-19 we had only been able to test the car in the race at the Rally Andalucía, a race that has little resemblance to the Dakar. So I arrived at Dakar 2021 with a few kilometers behind the wheel of this car and without having it set up for me. And this year we did the Baja Aragón, the Rally of Morocco, we were able to work a lot with the car and in last year’s Dakar the brakes were not very good either and that made me lose confidence. So this year I arrive much better prepared and also, knowing the car much better.
You will accelerate, brake and turn with the commands on the steering wheel. One of the things that has improved the most this year has been that system, right?
All the steering wheel frames are installed by the Italian company Guidosimplex. Every car and system is different. For us, the greatest complexity was in the Hilux brakes, since we had to install a series of devices to assist these brakes. I have everything on the wheel. In it there are three rings. The middle one is the steering wheel itself, to turn. There is another above that I press to accelerate, and another below that is the brake, which is activated by pressing inward from below. This whole system sometimes goes very well 10 kilometers but when it warms up everything varies a little and at 300 km it no longer works the same as at the beginning. And since there are very few working distances, anything that does not go quite well and when driving a top-of-the-line car, which runs a lot and is very aggressive, because it creates a certain distrust that this command is not fully set. ready. For me, whether the commands work well or not, there is a lot of difference when it comes to being able to go at one pace or another.
You have the Dakar in your hands and you need this system to be perfect.
Yes. I mean, I can’t brake later than I think or brake less than I think, because this causes me a lot of insecurity and makes my race pace very different.
Now the steering wheel is already perfect?
Yes. I think it’s very good. In the Baja we found a set-up that went very well for us and in the Rally Morocco we wanted to do something else on the first day and we were wrong. We went back to the Baja set-up and the car worked very well. Therefore, I think we are going to Dakar 2022 with the car well tuned and with a lot of confidence in the car, which in the end is the important thing.
Is the goal the Top-20?
We have analyzed the list of participants, we have seen the result of Morocco and the rhythms and in the category in addition to the leading cars are those of Century, MD, and it is difficult to be among the top 20 because there are many very good people and with very good cars. good. But I think that we have to have our options to enter this Top-20, even if it seems difficult at first. But at the end of the rally I think we should be in that Top-20, because we have made 21st twice and we have to be there.
What career plan do you have? Start as high as possible to avoid getting behind the trucks?
The starting order is very important. As long as you have 10 or 12 trucks in front of you, it is very difficult to pass them. There is a 20km prologue stage on the first day, a link to Ha’il which is important, although the next day the loop at Ha’il is mostly sand and I don’t think there will be much dust. So, it is clear that the objective of each day, including the prologue, is to be as high as possible always to avoid track traffic, dust and problems, but you have to see how high we can be.
There are a number of cars that we have not seen in competition yet and we do not know how they will go. We have to go out and do the best possible prologue to get out as far as possible. And the fact that the Marathon stage will be on stage 2 and 3… I don’t remember a marathon stage so early on a Dakar! There is always the uncertainty from the start, that if something fails in the starter car you will immediately find yourself in the marathon and there you don’t have the mechanics.
The jump to a Hilux was huge. Now, the improvement in the steering wheel has been key. Every year it gets better. Do you have a roof over your head or do you think you could be in the fight to fight for a Dakar in the future?
What is clear is that everyone improves. When you think that you have improved, the other 30 rivals you have have also improved. The problem is when from one year to the next you get stuck and you wear the same thing. Where is my roof? We do not know. But when we say going to the Dakar with a chance to win by car, we have to bear in mind that there are only two or three riders who are in that group. There’s no more! It is very difficult to have a chance to win.
Options to win are those who have a broad sports project, the leader of a team, who has won the Dakar more times, who has won the World Cup or wins World Cup races. And of these there are two or three. There are not four. So my ceiling I do not know what it is and it is very good not to know. I feel competitive, I have the vision and the way of working for motorcycles, but the world of cars is very complex, there are many people competing and there are many factors that influence you to be ahead.
Naturally, I want to be competitive and I would like one day to be in a position to win stages and races of the World Cup. But we are not on that stage. We are not in a scenario close to this, far from it. We are here to go to the Dakar, to compete, improve, be better every day and see where this improvement places us.
How do you think sailing will be this year?
The most important change was made last year. This year it is moving to the electronic tablet and for me there is a definition that clearly defines what navigation means in the Dakar: What allows a pilot to go fast is the ability to interpret the navigation of the pilot and co-pilot at the same time. The ability to navigate is what allows you to go fast and what will set your pace. For this reason, the roadbook from last year was already very good for me. It was what it had to be. Navigation must be of great importance on the Dakar.
What do you think of this year’s tour?
I think that the fact that there is more sand this year will mean that the T1 + will not take as much advantage over the T1 from last year’s regulation as we did. The great advantage of the buggies and the T1 + is that they go with the 36-inch wheel, a big wheel, and with this wheel it is very difficult to puncture. With the wheel that we took last year De Villiers punctured 28 times and Al-Attiyah, 12. The more sand, the less difference the T1 + will make compared to us.
Do you think it is unfair that this category has this advantage?
No, far from it. I think it’s very fair, because otherwise the buggies had a lot of advantage. Last year’s Sainz and Peterhansel buggies, Serradori’s or Peugeot’s had too much advantage over 4x4s and that couldn’t be. The 4x4s had to be very forced to keep up with the buggies. Now, the issue is whether the team has the budget to go from a T1 to T1 +, but the car of the future is a T1 + with a big wheel.
You also went from motorcycles to cars. How do you see that change in Laia Sanz?
She really wanted to go in a car and her Ha’il times were very good. Now we have to see how the Dakar will go. But I am completely sure that Laia will do very well in cars. He has a great team and has a lot of prospects for the future. Above all, that, I see Laia with a lot of future projection.
What advice can you give Laia?
I would tell you to be calm. I am completely sure it will be fine for you. But above all, on days when there is a lot of traffic on the track, you will have to be patient with the dust and wait for your moment to get out of that hole. There is always a day when you are in that situation and it is exasperating, since you go down the track and you go straight but you have to brake because you do not see anything. Tranquillity. The time to get out of traffic always comes, to find a clean track and to be able to go faster.
Who do you see as the favorite to win the Dakar in cars?
Nasser Al-Attiyah. Undoubtedly. For me this year there is a clear favorite with a lot of distance from the rest and only a mechanical problem could save him from the Dakar. All the rest are away from Nasser if he doesn’t have a mechanical problem. Now he goes with a car that equates him to the benefits against which he could not do anything last year, those of the buggies. All of us who go a T1, if we had a budget, we would go with a T1 +. Now the buggies are equal in performance to the 4×4. It is the future of the T1 4×4 category, to go with a T1 +.
You who are a person who always pushes all your projects forward. Do you understand that Carlos is putting himself into such a big and long-term challenge with Audi at 59 years old?
Yes. It’s great for him. He is a born worker, he is very good at tuning cars, he is a person of challenges and I think that the Audi project is a technological challenge above all else. Who better than Carlos Sainz to lead such a project?
What do you think will be the key to this Dakar?
I think it is the Dakar of technological change. A Dakar in incognito, to see this change in regulations, the arrival of new energies, new fuels, like us who bet on Repsol’s eco-fuel… is to see how all this will go. For me there is a favorite, but they have to see if all these changes work, know how the hybrid car from Audi will go … there is a lot of expectation and I think that in cars it will be the most competitive Dakar in history. There is Bahrain, Mini, Audi, Toyota, all with official drivers, about 20 Century cars, MD with the new buggies… it is the most competitive Dakar in cars that I remember and the one with the most changes in recent years. And on top of that, a new world championship begins on the Dakar!
What does it mean for Isidre Esteve to be able to work together with Repsol on this new eco-fuel that he will take on this Dakar?
Being able to work with Repsol and develop a fuel that is in line with the FIA guidelines and at the same time with social concern is a privilege. And on top of the car, we tested this eco-fuel in Morocco with Toyota and the performance surprised us all. They are capable of making an eco-fuel with equal or higher performance. It is a matter of formulation, of will.
What would you say to the readers of Mundo Deportivo?
Do not miss any stage of this Dakar, because this race has many challenges at the technological, regulatory, driver and brand level. It is a fascinating Dakar. There is a favorite, but there are so many new things to see if it will work or not, that they have to make this Dakar very interesting.
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