It’s hardly a rarity to come across the odd maniacal car driver on the roads, but it was the Saudi Arabian desert in which Philippe Gendron came into contact with Tim and Tom Coronel.
The Coronel brothers are by now mostly known for their annoying social media habit of continuously following and unfollowing people, but they also still race.
This year, they’re taking on the Dakar Rally with the Century manufacturer in the T1.2 Prototype Cross-Country Cars category. One of the particular features of the Dakar is that it places vehicles from all categories - from trucks to bikes - on the same stage, and with stage times reaching multiple hours there is plenty of chance for the different classes to find each other on-stage.
On the third stage of the rally, a 438km stretch from Al Duwadimi to Al Salamiya, the Coronels came into contact with Philippe Gendron and the KTM 450 Rally Replica bike he’s racing for Nomad Racing. Fortunately, reports are that all involved are okay, as both the Coronels and Gendron were able to make it to the bivouac after the end of the stage.
In a review of the third stage published on the Coronel Dakar Team website, Tim Coronel said: “Suddenly a bike came in the opposite direction and hit full on the hood. We stopped immediately, but he felt fine. That was a bit of a scare though, but fortunately, the motorcyclist is otherwise OK.”
After Stage 3, Gendron was 77th, but it seems that he has now had to retire from the rally, having not been classified in today’s Stage 4 rankings.
Autosport reports that the Coronel brothers apologised to Gendron for the crash.
In the motorcycle class, Kevin Benavides won Stage 3 in the motorcycle class, but in today’s fourth stage it was Nacho Cornejo who won, and who took the lead, for Honda. He leads by 75 seconds in the overall standings, ahead of Hero’s Ross Branch, who had incurred a 60-second penalty.
In the car class, nine-times World Rally Champion Sebastien Loeb won Stage 4, but it’s Yazeed Al Rajhi, by four minutes and 29 seconds from two-times World Rally Champion Carlos Sainz.
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Lead image credit: Tim Coronel/Facebook.
