Eurol Rally Sport will race barely totally different IVECO vans from what they’re used to on the 2025 Dakar Rally. On Saturday, Martin van den Brink and his son Mitchel van den Brink introduced they’ve fashioned an alliance with MM Expertise, switching away from Group de Rooy after three years collectively. Each will likely be in identically ready IVECO PowerStars.
MM Expertise is led by Martin Macík Jr., who gained the most recent Dakar within the Truck class. Since then, Macík has been busy increasing his crew’s operations by promoting the Dakar-winning IVECO to Firemen Dakarteam (a Dutch outfit like Eurol) and now constructing two vans for the van den Brinks. Eurol Rally Sport will put together the automobiles in-house as soon as delivered from MM’s store within the Czech Republic.
Though MM and de Rooy each area the PowerStar, Martin famous they’re “in any other case incomparable. MM Expertise’s ideas are utterly totally different from De Rooy’s.” For instance, in response to Mitchel, the Macík truck is “1000 kilograms lighter but in addition extremely dependable.
“MM proved final 12 months that they’ve a profitable truck. Martin Macík gained the rally, and on account of his significantly better truck, he was clearly a category above us. It was clear that we wanted to regulate our technique to compete for victory.”
Mitchel joined Macík on the category podium when he completed third on the 2024 Dakar in his PowerStar, throughout which he gained Stage #8. It was his fourth Dakar as a driver after making his début in 2021, although he had been concerned with the household crew since 2019 when he was sixteen. He scored his maiden stage win on the 2023 race en path to a fourth. In Could, he gained the Morocco Desert Problem in a Can-Am Maverick X3 for the second 12 months in a row.
Martin has sixteen Dakars beneath his belt, however his 2024 race was upended early on by a rollover in Stage #2. In contrast to his son, he raced an IVECO T-Manner with a handbook transmission, although the partnership with MM will place him again in an automated PowerStar.
“We realised (handbook) not works on the Dakar Rally. The organisation has made the rally harder and our gear must match that,” Martin commented. “So for me, this new truck is already an enchancment in comparison with the 2024 rally.”
Each of their vans have been put up on the market in March.
Eurol Rally Sport was beforehand referred to as Mammoet Rallysport till Eurol Lubricants grew to become the title sponsor in mid-2022. After racing Renaults, they switched to IVECOs from de Rooy for the 2022 Dakar.
“We’re extraordinarily proud and completely happy that our companions made this attainable,” continued Mitchel. “However we’re not there but. Within the coming months, we’ve got to do every part to assemble the required finances to actually compete for victory within the 2025 rally.
“We’re completely happy that the enthusiastic {and professional} folks on our crew can deal with all of this. We’re an novice crew among the many manufacturing facility groups, and we must be pleased with that.
“Now that we’ve got prime gear, we will elevate the bar a bit of larger. Going for the win is my aim.”
The crew will start testing the truck in Morocco in early October. The 2025 Dakar Rally is scheduled for 3–17 January.
