De Villiers' five-hour penalty withdrawn

The Giniel de Villiers-Dennis Murphy vs amateur bikers affair continues. We thought the case was closed following the five-hour penalty imposed by the commissioners of the Dakar 2022 and the World Championship rally-raids as well as the promise of purchase of a motorcycle and registration fees by the South African rider from the Moroccan Mohamedsaid Aoulad Ali…, But no.

This Friday, January 7, the college of commissioners announced that it has reassessed this sanction thanks to a petition signed by the Toyota Gazoo Racing. Asked by AUTOhebdo a few hours earlier at the bivouac in Riyadh, Jean Marc Fortin, the boss of Overdrive (in charge of the entry of official Toyotas) was confident.

“We are going to get a car back in the top 4, I can tell you, that of De Villiers. After our own investigation, we were able to prove our loyalty and our good faith in this story. We will soon have four Toyotas in the top five, that will be satisfactory. »

The commissioners wrote in a decision published in the middle of the afternoon that the elements provided by Toyota “show a more detailed and precise timeline. (…) The stewards concluded that no fault was committed by the driver and that decision no. 14 must be revoked. »

At the time of the said decision, Toyota Gazoo Racing did not have access to detailed data from the tracking system. After ERTF (the company responsible for GPS systems) checked the car on January 6 for a possible malfunction of the Sentinel system (buzzer), there were doubts about exactly when the alarm went off in the SUV.

This led the competitor to request data from the Marlink (tracking system). This data is not published and only after ERTF questioned certain elements, the pilot was able to acquire the Marlink data. »

A few minutes later, another statement from the commissioners was issued. This specifies that ERTF controlled the location of the Sentinel antenna on January 6. The device was well installed in the cabin of the Hilux T1+. However, the quality of signal reception depends on the type of car windshield. In the case of De Villiers-Murphy's 4x4, signal reception was “sufficient but not optimal”. The controller could not “clearly confirm that the signal was sufficient to activate the alarm in the car”.

In other words, Giniel de Villiers may not have heard any warning when crossing the dune, behind which the biker was on the ground.

Furthermore, Marlink provided a incident timeline with ERTF data. It all happened in less than a minute:
11:01 and 44 seconds: The motorcycle stops behind a dune
11:01 a.m. and 57 seconds: The alarm signal is received by car no. 207 (De Villiers-Murphy)
11:01 and 59 seconds: The car hits the motorcycle
11:02 a.m.: A second alarm signal is received by the car
11:02 and 5 seconds: The car begins to circle
11:02 and 7 seconds: the alarm in the car stops
11:02 and 10 seconds: the alarm sounds again
11:02 and 13 seconds: The car leaves the scene (of the accident)
11:02 a.m. and 15 seconds: the alarm stops in the car

The commissioners reached the following conclusion: "It is of little importance whether the pilot saw or heard the alarm sinceAvoiding a blind obstacle within two seconds seems almost impossible. Despite this tight timing, the pilot was able to avoid the motorcyclist so that he could escape this incident unscathed. The tracking system also confirms the pilot's testimony that he carried out a circle to find out if the biker was injured or not. »

Giniel de Villiers and Dennis Murphy return to the fight for the final podium. The winner of the 2009 edition is only 51'56'' behind the leaders Al-Attiyah-Baumel, just 1'31'' from Sébastien Loeb and Fabien Lurquin (BRX) halfway!