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At the Dakar Rally, Phillipe Boutron was seriously injured in a sudden explosion of his car outside of the racing action in front of a hotel in Jeddah. It is still unclear how the incident came about.
In addition to his racing driver activities, Boutron is president of a French football club in the 3rd division.
imago images / PanoramiC
What exactly triggered the explosion is still unclear.
imago images / PanoramiC
A French driver sustained serious injuries after an explosion at the Dakar Rally.
The French Foreign Ministry does not rule out a criminal act.
The Saudi Arabian authorities have now increased security.
Shortly before the start of the 44th edition of the Dakar Rally, a tragic incident occurred. A French driver was seriously injured in an explosion in his vehicle and has to be flown to his home country France after an operation, as the organizers of the rally announced at the beginning of the year. According to the rally organizer ASO, the man was seriously injured on Thursday when his vehicle was stopped by a “sudden explosion” in front of a hotel in the Saudi Arabian city of Jeddah.
While the man was driving his team’s assistance vehicle for technical inspection, an explosive device exploded under his seat, creating a hole in the floor of the vehicle. The police are still investigating the background to the incident and at the moment do not want to “rule out any possibility, not even a malicious act”.
Was it a bomb attack?
The Italian sports newspaper “Gazzetta dello Sport” subsequently speculated that the explosion was actually not supposed to be an accident, but possibly even a bomb attack. The Saudi Arabian interior minister has not yet been able to confirm these rumors and wrote on Twitter that there is currently no “criminal suspicion” of the cause of the incident.
According to the organizers and authorities, the vehicle involved in the accident was an escort vehicle with a total of six passengers on board, one of whom was admitted to the military hospital in Jeddah and had to be operated on on the leg. According to the rally race director, the injured driver is the president of the French football club US Orléans (3rd division), the 61-year-old Philippe Boutron. The condition of the 61-year-old should not be critical despite the serious injury. The other passengers were all unharmed.
The world motor sport association Fia expressed its confidence in the authorities in Saudi Arabia in coming to terms with the incident. “Fia trusts the local authorities to find out what happens,” it said in a statement on Sunday. They also trust that they will continue to guarantee the safety of the race together with the organizers.
Security precautions are being strengthened
As a reporter from the AFP news agency reported, the security precautions around the rally camp have already been significantly strengthened as a result of the incident in Jeddah. In the travel advice on its website, the French Foreign Ministry also called for “maximum vigilance” after the “explosion” and also emphasized that “the hypothesis of a criminal act cannot be ruled out”.
The legendary Dakar Rally starts on January 2nd and lasts until January 14th. With Mario Jacober (44) and Sladjan Miljic (28) there are also two Swiss at the start of the ride through the desert. The two amateur racing drivers tackle the 8,500 kilometers through Saudi Arabia in a Russian Lada from 1984 and traveled to Hail in December, where the rally starts.
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(dpa / flo)