Spaniard Isidre Esteve continues to make progress in Dakar 2018. The Repsol Rally Team driver has experienced all sorts of setbacks in an extremely difficult stage, which he finished in 35th place overall and 4th in the T1.S category with his Sodicars BV6 BMW with adapted controls on the steering wheel. "It has been a really difficult day, but we've had a great time", he said.

Isidre Esteve has gone through the special at a very good pace. He was in 27th place at CP2. However, he got a puncture in one tire and the other three came off the rims in the final few kilometers, making him drop several positions on the leader board.

"We were going at a really good pace and then we got a puncture. Just after that, the three other tires came off the rims because we had to drop the pressure to avoid getting stuck on the soft dunes in this zone. We didn't have any more spares but, thankfully, our Sodicars Racing team-mate Francis Balocchi came to our rescue and lent us a tire. It's a shame that later on he got stuck and we couldn't return the favour", said the driver.

"The car worked perfectly throughout this really difficult stage, in which we started out as a group on the beach and then drove on hard track and incredible dunes, it has been great. The navigation was quite complex but my co-driver was once again on top form. Wednesday will be yet another demanding day where we will say goodbye to the dunes of Peru, but I'm certain they will cause us a few last problems."

After slogging it out for 7:15 hours on Tuesday, the Repsol Rally Team has managed to climb into the 30th spot in the current overall car ranking and 4th place in the T1.2 category (4x4 off-road modified diesel cars), with a total accumulated time of 18:22:08.

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