No matter what happens in a Rally, you don’t abandon your teammate.

AbleGuy

AbleGuy

Officious Intermeddler
No matter what happens in the Dakar Rally, no matter how bad it gets, you don’t abandon your teammate.*
Except apparently in this case:


(*different rules may apply to certain non-professional road trip co-pilots tho)

jalopnik.com

Dakar Buggy Driver Ditches His Co-Driver In The Middle Of A Stage

No matter what happens in the Dakar Rally, no matter how bad it gets, you don’t abandon your teammate. And yet one driver competing in the Side-by-Side class reportedly did just that yesterday, in the middle of the world’s most grueling rally raid event, this year taking place in Saudi Arabia.
jalopnik.com jalopnik.com

“No matter what happens in the Dakar Rally, no matter how bad it gets, you don’t abandon your teammate. And yet one driver competing in the Side-by-Side class reportedly did just that yesterday, in the middle of the world’s most grueling rally raid event, this year taking place in Saudi Arabia.

Xavier Blanco, co-driver for Ricardo Ramilo competing in the #438 Buggy Masters Team car, was stranded 170 kilometers into a 464-kilometer stage, according to reports from Spanish outlets Diario AS and Marca. The split was the culmination of disagreements between the two in the car, seemingly over Ramilo’s driving, which left Blanco fearing for his life.

At one point, Blanco evidently couldn’t take it anymore and ordered Ramilo to stop the car. Blanco got out and refused to continue — so Ramilo sped off without him. The co-driver shared a statement with Diario AS, which has been quoted below and translated (roughly) by Google:

‘I decided to get off when I see that my life is at risk and the pilot ignores. Next, what has done has been to abandon me, literally, I have abandoned myself in the middle of the desert. I did not want to go back up and he said ‘well, there you stay.’...
 
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DaveInDenver

DaveInDenver

Middle Income Semi-Redneck
He says "You're a menace, stop the car, I want out." So he does and you do. Then what? Is the driver going to admit he's wrong and change himself? Of course not, he's going to drive away just like you expected. I'm not even sure you can call the driver a total jerk. At least he pulled over and stopped. It IS a race after all. The navigator could have decided to stay at the last check point if he didn't want to walk home.
 
perterra

perterra

Adventurer
billiebob said:
In the 1970s Formula One had a few deaths every year. Now they go 10 years between fatalities. It is the way they run the game if you want to compete you accept the risks. Or you get out. Not saying it is right but fact is if you enter the odds of survival are a bit worse than crossing the street.
Click to expand...

I had a customer who had a few deaths in their facility every year, I dont know if I would say thats a shining example of the way you operate. If I were an owner, I would ditch the driver the second rolled in to a stop. Nothing sponsors love better than a fatality using their product and nothing owners love better than writing off several million due to a bone head accident that could have been avoided. If the driver didnt know the rules, maybe he should have opened a rule book up before he left.
 
Herbie

Herbie

Rendezvous Conspirator
perterra said:
I had a customer who had a few deaths in their facility every year, I dont know if I would say thats a shining example of the way you operate. If I were an owner, I would ditch the driver the second rolled in to a stop. Nothing sponsors love better than a fatality using their product and nothing owners love better than writing off several million due to a bone head accident that could have been avoided. If the driver didnt know the rules, maybe he should have opened a rule book up before he left.
Click to expand...
Moreover, F1 got safer specifically because certain marquee drivers started insisting on it. After Stewart's accident at Spa, he became an advocate. Similar for Lauda after the Nurburgring. By the time Senna died, basically the entire driver's association was ready to put their collective foot down until improvements were made.

Nobody but the driver and co-driver know for sure what was going on in that car, but if the navigator felt strongly enough about it to get out of the car, I think it's reasonable to at least consider that this was not a matter of him being "timid". The macho BS is all well and good until one has to place their own life in someone else's hands - and THAT guy turns out have a very different set of priorities.

It's also worth noting that the Jalopnik article fails to mention that the team were already technically disqualified - Ramilo had been driving so erratically that they'd already had three punctures on the stage, and they had no more spares, along with other mechanical failures. They transferred to the "Dakar Experience" class where they were allowed to continue , but their time wouldn't have counted even if they'd finished. In terms of "there to do a job", I'd say the guy who failed to get the car across the line gets more blame than the guy who stepped out after that bridge had already been burned, rather than take on additional risk for no reason. The team owner sided with the Co-Driver, which is also telling.
 
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