On January 5, Stage 4 was from Al Qahma to Riyadh. The longest SS (competition segment) of 464.76 km was held on the route southward to the capital, Riyadh.

Teruhito Sugawara, Hirokazu Somemiya, and Yuji Mochizuki (employee of HINO Motors) of HINO TEAM SUGAWARA, which is competing in the Truck category with the HINO 600 Series equipped with a hybrid system, performed well and finished in 12th place overall in this category. With this result, we have moved up to 20th place in the overall rankings up to the fifth day.

The SS started from a plateau 99.5 km away from Al Qahma in the liaison (moving section). The first half of the road surface was a hard gravel that can be ridden at speed, and the second half was a wide area with multiple wheel tracks that can be ridden in different directions, following the indicated cup (direction). After that, sand dunes appeared a few times, though not so difficult. Finally, the Team reached the goal by running along the bottom of a dry river. The navigation in the first half of the stage was complicated, and the shock when crossing the wheel tracks was huge. It was a risky stage because of the high speed.

During the bivouac the day before, the HINO 600 series of HINO TEAM SUGAWARA made improvements to reduce the vibration of the capacitor case that is floatingly mounted on the cargo bed. The effect on handling stability caused by the swaying of a heavy object weighing approximately 400 kg has been greatly reduced. The shutdown of the hybrid system was resolved by reviewing the control system, and the HINO 600 Series drove through this SS. The Team arrived at the goal near Riyadh without incident.

Teruhito Sugawara

The shaking of the capacitor case was considerably reduced today, so we were able to increase our pace considerably. There is still room for improvement, but the trouble with the hybrid error has been solved, and I think we are starting to see some positive signs.

Hirokazu Somemiya

In the first half of the race, we had to follow the cup indicated in the road book through many branches, but it was dangerous because there were unexpected gaps when we went into different wheel tracks. The navigation was complicated and tense.

Yuji Mochizuki

There were no hybrid errors during the SS today, and I was able to drive comfortably because the issues we have been facing have been solved to some extent. The hood type with the seating position between the wheel bases is more comfortable than the cap-over type with less vibration.

Shoutaro Hamai

I am accompanying the Dakar Rally as the engineer in charge of the hybrid system. Since the hybrid control for the rally is tuned specifically for racing, we have been making adjustments while running the real race. It seems that we were able to counter the error by suppressing the noise. We would like to continue maturing the system.