Minutes after landing in Spain, the two-times winner of the Dakar Marc Coma, and the whole of the Repsol KTM team, gave a press conference at the Repsol company headquarters with the managing director, Jaume Giró, in attendance.
After covering more than 10 000km in Argentina and Chile, the members of the winning team: Marc Coma, the team manager, Jordi Arcarons, and the riders Jordi Viladoms and Gerard Farrés, were more than pleased to arrive home and very satisfied with how the race developed.
Jaume Giró congratulated Coma on his triumph, which he attributed to the whole Repsol KTM team. The managing director of Repsol recalled an African proverb which says “If you want to go fast, travel alone, but if you want to go far, go in company” to emphasise the great work done by all the members of the team. In this sense, he mentioned the fact that Gerard Farrés competed with an injured wrist for a large part of the race and that Jordi Viladoms sacrificed a podium finish so that he could always be on hand to help Marc Coma, a rider who “knows how to win and lose, always with humility”. Giró also had words of praise for Nani Roma, a driver in the Repsol Mitsubishi Ralliart team, who finished as the highest placed Spanish driver in the car category, tenth, after suffering from mechanical problems.
Triunfo colectivo
Coma said that he “felt like he was home” at the Repsol headquarters and thanked everybody for the support that he had received over the fifteen days of the race, from Jordi Arcarons, “who knew how to transmit all his experience” to Farrés and Viladoms, as well as al the mechanics and technicians. The first Spaniard to win the Dakar two times stated that the rally in South America “was just as or even more spectacular” than previous editions in Africa, although he made it clear that he thinks the dark continent is “the natural venue for the race”. “I see myself with the necessary energy to tackle two or three years more on the motorbike” said the rider from Avià (Barcelona).
Farrés said that the Dakar race in South America “did not lose any of the the comradeship and was just as gruelling”, whilst Viladoms emphasised the support of the public in both Argentina and Chile, “which was really behind the riders and drivers” throughout the whole race. The members of the Repsol KTM team also sent a get well message to the Spanish rider Cristóbal Guerrero, who is still in hospital after an accident on one of the specials held in the Atacama desert.
