2015-01-02

 ……….with Jarlath Sweeney – Part 1/2



Team PETRONAS De Rooy Iveco recently announced its participation in the next edition of the world’s most famous off-road rally. Three Iveco vehicles are set to compete for a place on the podium with Dutchman Gerard De Rooy once again at the helm.

The special stages on the Dakar 2015 are quite different, much longer. Last year, the organisers changed the format when they didn’t run the three types of vehicles together – bikes, cars and the trucks.  Do you think that was a good idea?

GDR   I still don’t know the reason why they did it, why they changed it. I think it’s a nightmare for the journalists. For us it’s not a big deal but I would like to have the same kilometres as the other guys. We drive 800 kilometres less than the bikes or the cars  – I don’t know why. I want to compare myself with the Minis, with the other guys; I would like to be in the top 10 with the cars. Now you can’t compare that, ok you can do that in a day, but overall I like to compare everything with the cars, with the bikes – that’s not possible and I don’t understand the reason why they do it.

For 2015, you are starting afresh with new team members but with consistency still your top priority?

GDR   Yes, I have a new co-pilot and some new guys on the team and they have been on the Dakar for a long time. We go to Morocco to drive in the dunes. I like to play in the dunes and we come back and they were quiet, I say ‘what’s wrong’?, ‘I’ve never been in a truck that goes so quick in the dunes.’  Normally you go straight, but I surf, I really play like a snake. But on average I think the good thing with me is even now I can be consistent the whole day, I don’t go fast the first 2 hours and then get tired and by the end of the special you get a little more energy and I’m almost there, then you go quick again – I stay flat. I can stay concentrated and more relaxed.

Just looking ahead to the 2015 race, obviously the Russians are your biggest competitors but there are others like Alex Loprais who is driving a MAN, and the Tatras have always there thereabouts over the years. Do you look at your other competitors outside of Kamaz or are you just obsessed with trying to beat them?

GDR  It’s mainly Kamaz that you have to worry about because they come with four drivers and they don’t have team tactics, they can all win. The drivers are all that good. They have the best-tested truck, best team, after us. The other guys like Tatra, they only tested two days in South of France in October, it’s not the right time to test the cooling, it was ok. You need to go to Africa, you need to go to Morocco to do extreme. The mechanics did fantastic work, they made a nice truck but every year they find some problems that really with testing you can eliminate. The concept can be good but you need to test and they didn’t. I know that a lot of teams didn’t test enough, they went testing one day later as the rally started in Morocco, in a hurry to make it ready for the rally.  When we were doing our own test; they did maybe 100 kilometres a day. You need to test fully and Kamaz is doing 4, 5, 6 rallies per year. In the end there is only one rival, that’s Kamaz who is on the same level on all things.

How many are in the team, how many people actually go to South America?

GDR   Twenty-eight total, nine in the race trucks, we bring our own doctor, one physiotherapist to fix everybody for the next day and then one guy who is responsible for all the mechanics.  There are three people that run the team. Last year, my father was there as the main captain but this year he’s retired.

Your family history in Dakar is quite legendary with you and your dad winning the event. You have had relationships with different truck manufacturers from Ginaf to DAF to Iveco. From these relationships, would you consider Iveco and sister brand FPT Industrial as your best partners?

GDR   It’s 1987 compared to 2012 and beyond – the whole world, everything has changed, you can’t compare that. The time with DAF the people who made the truck, they were the guys who built the engine, who built everything. I like to have the direct contacts.

Do you still do as much of the truck building as you did with DAF Trucks, I remember visiting your premises in Eindhoven about 7 years ago and you were actually building it from scratch

GDR   Dad built the truck himself with the support of DAF, now we do the same with Iveco. In that time the truck manufacturer was needed to develop the engine, the rest was our project. Now it’s the same. Nobody of Iveco is telling me how to make the suspension because you cannot compare the racing version with the standard one. The only thing is the engine is the most important, or the driveline cooling, and the engine package. In the end I get a box from FPT finished, put it in, I drive. I don’t touch, I don’t even know what to touch, that’s the relationship you have with Iveco and FPT – they do their thing and we do the other part.



JS      I imagine that Dakar takes up a lot of your time day to day. How do you mix the motorsport life and your business life together, how does it work?

GDR   It works quite well, mainly in certain periods it’s busy but I have a good team who run during the day during the normal week. I have one guy who manages all of the mechanics, so everyday it takes me one hour and at the weekends, more but during a working day it takes me only one hour. Most of the time I combine it with lunch, so I seem them in the morning before they work, the afternoon and then in the evening. When you are testing you are gone for one, two – three weeks.

JS      From a business perspective obviously you have a very good management team?

GDR   Yes, when my father ran the company, he could run it by himself and now it’s so diverse with all legislation and all different rules. You need a special people for the finance, for the operations or for the sales department. You can’t do that yourself.  You need different people.



What do you love about the Dakar and what do you hate about the Dakar?

GDR   What do I like, is the adventure, and the team spirit. You are there with 28 people and you need to finish with 28 and then there is racing aspect – driving on a high level.  You have to live on the edge. The surroundings we don’t see, we watch the video footage, proving that we’ve been there, which is nice.  But some days you keep the memory, especially in the dunes or when you have a narrow escape or whatever, those things you like about it.  And the things you don’t like is some days you are completely exhausted then you need to charge the batteries and then all the s##t comes at one time. You need to let it go and start over.

When you’ve been driving a hard day, do you dwell on what happened?

GDR   No – I never look back.  Hans when he finishes the stage goes to his bed thinking ‘what did I do wrong the whole day’ and he’s looking through the entire special – I don’t look back.  From the mistakes we made, ok, I’ve got to push more but when I see the times, I can see that we had a problem here – I didn’t lose so much there, I get a feeling then that I have to do things differently or I need more sleep but I prefer to look forward.

JS      One of the successes of the event since it came to South America is the number of spectators that have turned out.  How significant is that to you as a competitor?

GDR   What I did not like about the Dakar when it was in Africa, was when some of the spectators throwing stones, I can understand why in South America, especially in Argentina the people, they are crazy about the event.  In Chile they are very cool, some people like it but not all, as they are completely different people.

JS      Really? How do you mean?

GDR   Yes, they don’t like the race so much as we see on the special. In Peru, they are the same as Argentina people; they are really crazy in a very good way, but in a dangerous way as they are very close to the track. One time on the truck it was completely covered with dirt with mud, there were stripes on the truck – people want to touch the truck while we are driving past. You know the images from the WRC in Portugal when the people move…. It’s like that sometimes.  It’s much better now but the first year we went to Argentina. They spend a lot of time on the safety. You don’t’ see that in Africa or if you do a normal rally in Europe but they don’t see the danger. They need to be aware, but they are only aware if something happens. But it’s really fun to see tens of thousands of people out supporting us and cheering us on.

Tweet

The post Interview with Gerard De Rooy; Team Petronas De Rooy Iveco : Dakar Rally 2015 appeared first on FleetCar.ie.

Show more