Despite a productive three years with MM Technology, Mitchel van den Brink decided to rekindle his partnership with Team de Rooy for the 2027 Dakar Rally. As part of the new deal, van den Brink would be more directly involved in developing de Rooy’s IVECO PowerStars.

The new truck made its debut at the Rallye du Maroc in convincing fashion. Van den Brink won all but one stage, easily clearing his former MMT technical partner Martin Macík Jr. by 45:38. At 24 years old, he is the youngest driver to win the RdM’s Truck category.

“I’m happy to be back with Team de Rooy FPT. They’ve built an incredibly good truck which we are super happy with,” said van den Brink at the finish. “We’re really pleased that, save for yesterday, we stayed ahead of the competition every day. We’ve shown that we’re faster, and this gives us a lot of confidence heading into Dakar. This victory really leaves us wanting more.”

Van den Brink and Macík, still good friends even if rivals for good now, ran together at the head of the field. This led to a strange moment at the start of Stage 2 when they were scaling an uphill trail and a local started going in the opposite direction despite the road not being wide enough for two vehicles; Macík quipped that van den Brink drove right through the local, who then blocked the path for Macík until tourists pleaded for the trucks to not run them over.

Macík finished 4:51 behind van den Brink on the first stage, joking he lost three minutes because the handlebar for his navigator František Tomášek broke. The margins grew over the next two stages as Macík couldn’t keep up in the dust and dirty air. This included losing the tread on one of his tires in Stage 2 after clipping something.

“I don’t know if Mitchel has luck or not. He never has a flat tire,” Macík quipped after Stage 3.

Ironically, a tire puncture would strike van den Brink in Stage 4, costing him a shot at the win. Macík seized the opportunity to win, albeit by just 5:57. Van den Brink was so far ahead in the overall that he would’ve needed to DNF or had a really bad Stage 5 to lose the win, which never happened as Macík instead went the wrong way. Macík reached the finish towing Sébastien Loeb.

Martin Šoltys rounded out the class podium in the final race for the Buggyra Invictus before the team begins its new alliance with Mercedes-Benz.

“Of course, we’re most pleased with the result, but I’ll say it again: we weren’t here so much for the result,” Šoltys stressed. “We came here mainly to test the engine components, and especially the turbo. I think we tested a lot here. That’s what I’m most pleased about. I hope we’ve sorted out this problem and it won’t happen again.”

Macík and fourth-placed Michal Váltr raced with the new MM Technology Factory Team branding. The latter joined the program in August.

Tomáš Vrátný finished sixth in the second race for Fesh Fesh’s new Tatra FF8 after the Baja Poland. The rally started somewhat suboptimally because the right front windshield got cracked from a branch, but the truck’s main concern regarded the air compressor intercooler after one of the mounts broke off in Stage 1. The cooler’s hose then snapped off on back-to-back days, further hampering progress, while the truck itself got stuck in the dunes in Stage 2 until classmate Alberto Pezzota came to the rescue. Fortunately, Vrátný made it home safe.

Kay Huzink, who also partnered with Team de Rooy under the newly-minted Huzink Rally Sport, was the lone DNF because of suspension and shock absorber failures on the second stage.

Results

Finish	Overall	Number	Driver	Navigator	Mechanic	Team	Total Time	Margin
1	21	603	Mitchel van den Brink	Bart van Heun	Jarno van de Pol	Eurol Rally Sport Team de Rooy	18:41:24	Leader
2	26	600	Martin Macík Jr.	František Tomášek	David Švanda	MM Technology Factory Team	19:27:02	+ 45:38
3	37	606	Martin Šoltys	Vlastimil Miksch	Tomáš Šikola	Buggyra ZM Racing	20:44:37	+ 2:03:13
4	41	604	Michal Váltr	Radim Kaplánek	Lukas Kvásnica	MM Technology Factory Team	21:22:00	+ 2:40:36
5	56	608	Jürgen Hellgeth	Andreas Hellgeth	Philipp Beier	Hellgeth Engineering	26:20:54	+ 7:39:30
6	58	605	Tomáš Vrátný	Adam Peschel	Jaromír Martinec	Fesh Fesh	29:13:23	+ 10:31:59
7	79	601	Alberto Pezzota	Claudio Bellina	Paolo Arrici	Italtrans Racing Team MM Technology	47:51:29	+ 29:10:05
DNF	DNF	602	Kay Huzink	Mark Salomons	Corne Blok	Huzink Rally Sport Team de Rooy	DNF	N/A

Stage winners

Stage	Overall	Driver	Time
Stage 1	37	Mitchel van den Brink	3:07:30
Stage 2	33	Mitchel van den Brink	4:02:56
Stage 3	17	Mitchel van den Brink	4:12:59
Stage 4	31	Martin Macík Jr.	3:35:07
Stage 5	24	Mitchel van den Brink	3:36:55

Featured image credit: Frédéric Le Floc’h / DPPI / ASO