When an F1 team saw a Dakar victory go up in smoke

F1 enthusiasts will know the name Minardi from Formula 1. TheItalian racing team was active in the premier class between 1985and 2005 and well-known drivers such as Fernando Alonso, MarkWebber and Jos Verstappen once drove for the team. The team waslater sold to Red Bull and appeared on the grid in 2006 as ToroRosso, now AlphaTauri. One year after Minardi debuted in Formula 1,the team also signed a deal for another major car and motorsportevent. In 1986 the team decided to participate in the Dakar Rally.Owner and namesake of the F1 team, Giancarlo Minardi, revealed toRacingNews365 that a good friend of his came up with the idea. TheF1 team 'felt something for it' and that is why it was decided toparticipate. That good friend also had a truck and that is why theteam registered with the trucks. “It was not easy to convert atruck that was not actually designed for racing into a fast racingtruck,” Minardi admits. The mistake that proved fatal for Minardi"That was a huge challenge, which we had to tackle during theseason in addition to the F1 activities. Still, we managed to makea car that went quickly over the dunes, despite the lack ofexperience we had." The Italian believes that with more experiencethey could have progressed further in the Dakar Rally. "I think wecould have done well in the future, but we simply lost too muchtime with our Formula 1 project. That's why we couldn't take onanother full-time project focused on Dakar. It was of course alsomuch more "It was a friendly project, it was definitely not justabout performance," said Minardi. Despite this, the team performedbetter than expected. "Towards the end of the rally we were even insecond place in the truck rankings." However, everything ultimatelyfell through due to an error during the conversion of the truck."The electrical wiring was not installed properly and thatultimately cost us dearly. "Because the wiring was not completelyperfect, a fire could eventually break out in the truck. That wasof course a shame for the team, but also for our drivers. Theycould no longer change anything about the situation and as a resultour truck eventually burned down completely and the Dakar adventurecame to an end for us." 'That would have been different later'Minardi's Dakar adventure ended in tears, but the Italian is stillproud of what the team achieved at the time. He also expects thatthe team could have scored well in a repeat performance. "I thinkif we had had more time in the years that followed, we could havebeen even more competitive. Now the engineers and mechanics in theteam had to do everything without experience, but that would havebeen different in the years that followed." Minardi never took partin the Dakar rally again and then returned to the premier class ofmotorsport, Formula 1.