After two spectator-friendly 'prologue' stages in Portugal, the 28th edition of the famous desert race to Dakar is heading for Morocco, and in the truck division, the 13-litre Iveco Trakker AT190T44W 4x4s are already shaping up well in their bid for victory. This morning the field of cars, motorbikes and trucks will head into the Moroccan desert on their way to Dakar, and by nightfall they will have covered 672km. During the day they will race against the clock over the 372km that make up 'Special Stage 3' which takes the competitors from Nador to Er Rachidia. Among the truck contingent - which includes entries from Mercedes-Benz, Kamaz and DAF - are the five Iveco contenders, led by former rally stars Miki Biasion and Makku Alén.

The event started from Lisbon on New Year's Eve and yesterday saw a second special stage taking place in Portugal before the ferry journey to North Africa commenced. The many local fans who gathered in the bright sunshine on the side of the roads of the stage two between Portimao and Malaga yesterday were overwhelmed to see one of their own heroes win the day’s motorcycle test. Indeed Ruben Faria a newcomer on the Euromilhoes Dakar 2006 did even better than on Saturday when he finished second, by clinching his first ever success. In the car category, another former rally champion, Spaniard Carlos Sainz, continued to impress on his first Dakar Rally, by clinching a second consecutive triumph. Russian Vladimir Chaguin also won a second consecutive special stage in the truck race, but Miki Biasion was only slightly in third place, moving him to third overall, and keeping him just ahead of his team mates who are all crowding the top of the overall leaderboad.

The first day's action on Saturday had actually seen Biasion finish in second place, two minutes adrift of the Russian Kamaz. "It was a very difficult stage," said the former Lancia World Rally Champion at the finish of the stage. "The road was very narrow and we could almost touch the trees on each side. It was also very physically demanding with these numerous u-turns.
 

"It was the first time I drove my new truck since I only tested it on a fifteen kilometres course a few days before the race. So I am very happy with this performance, even if we still have many things to fix, especially on the suspension. There were so many people who came to watch the stage that it reminded me of the WRC, even if there must have been far less people for the trucks than for the cars or the bikes," added Biasion.

Motorsport Italia's fleet of five trucks competing in the Dakar 2006 is composed of three Iveco Trakker AT190T44W, "Italia1", "Finland1" and "Espana1", driven respectively by two world rally champions "Miki" Biasion and Markku Alén and the Spanish champion Pep Vila, and two the Iveco Eurocargo 140E24W trucks driven by the Italians Luisa Trucco and Riccardo Garosci.

PIRELLI TYRES SUPPORTING IVECO'S DESERT ADVENTURE

The five vehicles will over the next fortnight tackle the world's most famous automotive marathon, an arduous trek of over 10,000 thousand kilometres of unsurfaced tracks and deserts, shod with standard Pirelli PS22 Pista tyres in the 14.00R20 PS22 size, the same used in the last edition of the Dakar. The chosen tyres are capable of guaranteeing extremely high performance in combination with the utmost resilience and reliability. In particular, they offer excellent "floatation" qualities with very low pressures in extreme environments such as deep sand and excellent resistance to tears and cuts.

This initiative marks the renewal of Pirelli's partnership with Iveco and Motorsport Italia with whom the company has already successfully competed in the Dakar 2005, the last edition of the World Cup Orient Rally in Turkey, where the team finished second in class, and the Baja Aragon (Spain) and the recent Pharaohs Rally (Egypt) in which the team won the truck category.

THE MOTORSPORT ITALIA TEAM

Italia 1 Iveco Trakker AT190T44W 4x4, Miki Biasion/Livio Diamante/Giorgio Albiero; Finland 1 Iveco Trakker AT190T44W 4x4, Markku Alén/Rafael Tornabell Cordoba/Adriano Micozzi; Espana 1 Iveco Trakker AT190T44W 4x4, Pep Vila/Gonzalo Asurmendi/Moi Torralardona; Italia 2 Iveco Eurocargo ML140E24WS 4x4, Luisa Trucco/Corrado Pattono/Germano Pattono; Italia 3 Iveco Eurocargo ML140E24WS 4x4, Riccardo Garosci/Renato Ricker/Rudy Briani; Service 1 Iveco Trakker AT380T44W 6x6, Daniele Ielardi/Marco Dono/Angelo Fumagalli; Service 2 Iveco Eurocargo ML135E24W 4x4, Franco Giuntoni/Matteo Curti/Davide Sala Danna