Motorsports
He won the Dakar stage and took the lead, but he wasn’t smiling. “Today is a bit of a sad day for me because it’s my son’s birthday, he’s 6 years old. I have no excuse not to be with him.”
Toyota official driver Henk Lategan won Stage 4, the first half of the first marathon stage of the event, taking the lead in the 2026 Dakar Rally in the Top Car category. His pace was diabolical and devastating, as evidenced by the seven minutes he took from Nasser Al Attiyah. Nasser Al-Attiyah was also able to turn around and attack just like the South African player.
However, the official driver of the Toyota team was not satisfied. His mind was elsewhere. I went to South Africa with my son.
“Today is a bit of a sad day for me, because it’s my son’s birthday, who is turning 6 years old. I want to wish him a happy birthday, because I don’t think there’s any excuse not to be with him on Son’s Day for several years now.” Express. He had just achieved what he had always dreamed of: showing his speed and attacking power to become the leader of the Dakar. But he didn’t laugh.
“Bo has had excuses for not being with him on his day for several years, so I would like to wish him a happy birthday.”
Lategan also emphasized that the Dakar is very hard with lots of punctures and lots of rocks. Stones were expected in the first two stages, but stage 3 had a lot of difficult stones, and stage 4 also had stones. Genk, who had already suffered a puncture on stage three, decided to take the maximum risk. It worked. “Today we played Russian roulette!” he yelled, not quite understanding why there were so many flat tires on this rally and how to avoid them.
“It’s the lottery. Today is Russian roulette!”
“I’ve had a total of nine punctures in the three stages so far, which is unbelievable. I think this is a record for three days. I was lost and on the stones I didn’t know what to do, whether to slow down, whether to attack or not. Today I decided to forget about it and let myself go. No matter how you look at it, it’s a lottery. ”said.
“Today we had a rocky track and we were able to attack. We made two small navigation mistakes, but everyone has to make mistakes. We’ll check the car.” My rear tire always goes flat, but I think it’s because I was lifting rocks with the front tire. “It’s unpredictable,” he explained.
Source: Mundo Deportivo
I am a writer at Sportish, where I mainly cover sports news. I’ve also written for The Guardian and ESPN Brasil, and my work has been featured on NBC Sports, SI.com and more. Before working in journalism, I was an athlete: I played football for Colgate University and competed in the US Open Cross Country Championships.