Dakar rally driver loses co-pilot due to Covid-19

SPANISH rally driver Nani Roma has lost his co-pilot for the Dakar rally 2021 five days before the start due to the coronavirus.

The driver, from Cataluña, will not be accompanied by his trusted co-pilot Dani Oliveras, who has tested positive for coronavirus in a PCR test which has prevented him from travelling to Saudi Arabia. Instead he will be accompanied by Frenchman Alex Winocq, who has joined the BRX team.

It is not the first time Oliveras has tested positive and although he has not had any serious symptoms over the past month other than a bit of fever or discomfort, every test he has taken has come back positive because he hasn’t generated the antibodies needed to consider it overcome.

The Dakar protocol is strict: a non-negative test is immediate exclusion. Luckily for Nani Roma, his has had no direct contact with his co-pilot in the past weeks.

Winocq was co-pilot for Guerlain Chicherit in 2015, and has proven experience, but Oliveras is obviously disappointed that he won’t be going as he said on Instagram.


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Jennifer Leighfield

Jennifer Leighfield, born in Salisbury, UK; resident in Malaga, Spain since 1989. Degree in Translation and Interpreting in Spanish, French and English from Malaga University (2005), specialising in Crime, Forensic Medicine and Genetics. Published translations include three books by Richard Handscombe. Worked with Euro Weekly News since November 2006. Well-travelled throughout Spain and the rest of the world, fan of Harry Potter and most things ‘geek’.

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