2023 Dakar Rally: Janus van Kasteren wins first T5 title for IVECO since 2016

The Dakar Rally‘s T5 category had long been a glorified test ground for KAMAZ-master, who had won the event nineteen times including every edition but two since 2009 with the exceptions being a pair of IVECO wins in 2012 and 2016. With KAMAZ out of the picture for 2023, IVECO was once again on top.

KAMAZ, along with perennial frontrunner MAZ-SPORTauto, were barred from entering the 2023 Rally as they refused to sign the FIA’s policy condemning the Russian invasion of Ukraine, to perhaps little surprise as KAMAZ’s parent company is partly owned by the Russian government and has provided vehicles for the military in said conflict, while MAZ is overseen by ally Belarus. Without the Russians or Belarusians, other European brands became the main contenders as the top teams raced with the Italian IVECO or Czech Tatra. The 2007 Rally remains the last in which the Truck winner was not a KAMAZ or IVECO, when Hans Stacey won in a MAN.

IVECO enjoyed a top four sweep as Janus van Kasteren defeated 2022 World Rally-Raid runner-up Martin Macík Jr. and father/son duo Martin and Mitchel van den Brink. All but Macík raced for Team de Rooy, whose owner Gerard delivered IVECO’s two victories during KAMAZ’s reign; van Kasteren competed with Boss Machinery title sponsor while the van den Brinks were under the Eurol Rally Sport banner. Van Kasteren was the highest-finishing non-KAMAZ in 2022 in fifth, and finally sealed the deal when he inherited the lead in Stage #10 and never relinquished it.

Macík, driving for his own team, led the category in stage wins with five but lost the top spot after Stage #2 when his brakes failed. Close competition from Team de Rooy and Aleš Loprais meant the slightest slip-up was costly, and said failure resulted in him falling behind by over an hour. Despite his efforts to recover, Macík finished 1:14:34 back of van Kasteren.

“I went [to Dakar] really wanting to win,” Macík told Jan Červenka of Garáž.cz. “Every competitor should go there, we were ready for it with everything. Unfortunately, luck was not with us. […]

“Everyone kind of automatically assumed that we were going there and that we were going to win it (due to KAMAZ’s absence), and I told everyone not to go crazy, that this is Dakar and that anything can happen. The first stage was successful, everything suited us. Even when we came from the second stage with a colossal loss, there was talk about whether we could still make it. During the first stages, five crews crystallised that were sure to be going for the win, and then it wasn’t about KANAZ, but just about those rivals who felt the chance as much as we did.”

Loprais was the overall leader for much of the Rally’s first half, but withdrew after accidentally hitting and killing a spectator in Stage #9. At the time of his exit, he was leading van Kasteren by twenty-seven minutes.

The van den Brinks provided the next biggest challenge to van Kasteren, but were hamstrung by multiple late problems. A day after Martin won Stage #10, his gearbox jammed and would not shift higher than fourth gear and a motor reset caused the vehicle to stop multiple times. Mitchel, the Stage #6 winner who celebrated his twenty-first birthday in Stage #13, spent most of the latter leg helping his father—who was higher in the overall—before more issues struck the team.

The Buggyra Racing Tatras of Jaroslav Valtr and Martin Šoltys were the highest finishing trucks not from IVECO in fifth and sixth. Teruhito Sugawara, racing for the Japanese Hino brand, rounded out the top ten.

Much like the other categories, the Trucks were subject to an extremely difficult route than in previous years, with many rolling onto their side or suffering significant wear-and-tear. Pascal de Baar had slowly climbed the classification after winning Stage #10, but his chances took a hit when his Renault broke down on his way to the start of the twelfth leg and he eventually settled for sixteenth overall. Macík remarked to Červenka that he could have won if the Rally was four stages longer simply because nobody would have finished.

KH-7 Epsilon Team fielded a MAN truck for Jordi Juvanteny that partly ran on hydrogen, which made it ineligible for T5 unless it had diesel power. Instead, the entry was categorised in the “Challenge New Energy” class and therefore started behind every truck. However, the experiment ended when Juvanteny rolled during the Empty Quarter Marathon. Also on the alternative power front, 2022 W2RC class champion Kees Koolen retired ten stages into what he expects to be his final start in a vehicle powered by fossil fuels; he had planned to field an electric truck in the 2023 Rally but had to hold off due to shipping delays.

Despite not taking part, KAMAZ’s personnel continued to follow the Rally. Two-time winner Andrey Karginov told Match TV that he did not have a particular rooting interest in the field, but there was intrigue as “new leaders have appeared in the race and those teams have hope for a podium. On the other hand, you want to be there, participate and fight for high positions. I am sure that KAMAZ-master will definitely return to the Dakar.”

KAMAZ also gave congratulations to van Kasteren and the other overall winners, praising them for a “beautiful fight, beautiful victories!”

T5 overall top ten

Finish	Number	Driver	Co-Driver	Mechanic	Team	Time	Margin
1	502	Janus van Kasteren	Darek Rodewald	Marcel Snijders	Boss Machinery Team de Rooy IVECO	54:03:33	Leader
2	501	Martin Macík Jr.	František Tomášek	David Švanda	MM Technology	55:18:07	+ 1:14:34
3	506	Martin van den Brink*	Erik Kofman	Rijk Mouw	Eurol Rally Sport	56:43:55	+ 2:40:22
4	511	Mitchel van den Brink*	Jarno van de Pol	Moises Torrallardona	Eurol Rally Sport	58:06:02	+ 4:02:29
5	505	Jaroslav Valtr*	Rene Kilian	Tomáš Šikola	Buggyra Racing	59:09:42	+ 5:06:09
6	503	Martin Šoltys*	Roman Krejčí	David Hoffmann	Buggyra Racing	63:12:16	+ 9:08:43
7	512	Ben van de Laar*	Jan van de Laar	Adolph Huijgens	Fried van de Laar Racing	64:52:59	+ 10:49:26
8	510	Richard de Groot*	Mark Laan	Jan Hulsebosch	Firemen Dakarteam	67:48:48	+ 13:45:15
9	509	Tomáš Vrátný	Bartłomiej Boba	Jaromir Martinec	Fesh Fesh Team	68:27:25	+ 14:23:52
10	519	Teruhito Sugawara*	Hirokazu Somemiya	Yuji Mochizuki	Hino Team Sugawara	72:58:33	+ 18:55:00

* – Not competing in World Rally-Raid Championship

T5 stage winners

Stage	Number	Competitor	Team	Time
Prologue	501	Martin Macík Jr.	MM Technology	9:43
Stage #1	501	Martin Macík Jr.	MM Technology	3:57:18
Stage #2	508	Aleš Loprais*	InstaForex Loprais Praga	5:38:18
Stage #3	501	Gert Huzink*	Riwald Dakar Team	3:50:42
Stage #4	501	Martin Macík Jr.	MM Technology	5:10:23
Stage #5	508	Aleš Loprais*	InstaForex Loprais Praga	5:06:57
Stage #6	511	Mitchel van den Brink*	Eurol Rally Sport	3:46:58
Stage #7	502	Janus van Kasteren	Boss Machinery Team de Rooy IVECO	3:35:10
Stage #8	501	Martin Macík Jr.	MM Technology	4:04:28
Stage #9	502	Janus van Kasteren	Boss Machinery Team de Rooy IVECO	3:40:52
Stage #10	507	Pascal de Baar*	Riwald Dakar Team	2:09:46
Stage #11	506	Martin van den Brink*	Eurol Rally Sport	3:39:52
Stage #12	502	Janus van Kasteren	Boss Machinery Team de Rooy IVECO	2:30:38
Stage #13	501	Martin Macík Jr.	MM Technology	3:02:43
Stage #14	514	Vaidotas Paškevičius*	Fesh Fesh Team	1:18:34

Overall winners

Class	Number	Competitor	Team	Time
T1	200	Nasser Al-Attiyah	Toyota Gazoo Racing	45:03:15
T2	250	Ronald Basso*	Team Land Cruiser Toyota Auto Body	107:39:42
T3	303	Austin Jones	Red Bull Off-Road Junior Team	51:55:53
T4	428	Eryk Goczał	EnergyLandia Rally Team	53:10:14
T5	502	Janus van Kasteren	Boss Machinery Team de Rooy IVECO	54:03:33
RallyGP	47	Kevin Benavides	Red Bull KTM Factory Racing	44:27:20
Rally2	17	Romain Dumontier	Team Dumontier Racing	47:03:58
Malle Moto	40	Charan Moore*	HT Rally Raid Husqvarna Racing	52:24:42
Quad	151	Alexandre Giroud*	Drag’on Rally Team	56:44:30
Classic	778	Juan Morera*	Toyota Classic	428 points