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Trucks are much more than a job for Claudio Bellina. Founder of Italtrans along with his brother Germano and wife Laura Bertulessi, the entrepreneur from Bergamo is a Dakar legend, with 16 Rally Raid participations behind him on three different continents (Africa, South America and Arabia). All of them tackled aboard a truck.
There could therefore be no better man to flank and guide Danilo Petrucci in what will be the Terni rider's second experience in the famous desert marathon. The first as co-driver of the Iveco truck, fielded by the Italtrans team.
"For sure, having him on the team this year will also change a bit the way we experience the Dakar," Bellina explained to us on the sidelines of the team presentation. "While until last year for me it was a passion carried out as a privateer, this year we will have to put a little bit more effort into it by having a benchmark guy like Danilo, who will also be able to contribute a lot to the driving. It will be a good adventure."
Claudio, what do you expect from Petrucci?
"I have only known him for a short time, but I feel that I will be very comfortable with him, because he is a simple and willing guy. For sure his experience as a rider will help him a bit in evaluating things to do, and his contribution will also have a lot of importance, in a 15-day competition."
Will it be very different for Danilo compared to his first Dakar?
"Yes, definitely. It will be an advantage, though, even for me, that he already knows how it is. With someone who doesn't know what the Dakar is like, sometimes crews last three or four days and then they argue, or someone gives up."
What might be the biggest challenge ahead of him?
"It will certainly be trying to drive the truck. And he will, as he is now, I think, finishing his license. Trying to do it will definitely be a big challenge, because it's one thing to drive a motorcycle and it's another thing to drive a truck like that-it's a different thing."
What advice will you give him?
"I will definitely give him some. Since I've only ever done trucks in life, both as a profession and as a passion, I'll be able to give him some good advice."
I think experience is really one of the aspects that makes the difference in the Dakar. Carlos Sainz's victory last year also shows that a bit.
"Yes, for anyone who does the Dakar, whether in a car, truck or motorcycle, experience matters a lot. You can see it even with rally champions, who many times arrive the first year thinking they are doing the Dakar as a rally and then realize that it is not a 2 or 3-hour stage, but a race that lasts 15 days and in which anything can happen."
What does the Dakar represent for you?
"It's a passion, even if it's hard days afterwards. Now it is also almost a challenge with myself, since at 62 years old you have to try to keep up the pace, to endure. It is hard, however as long as I can do it, I do it! Every year there are days, even right at the beginning of the Dakar, when you say 'enough'. But then you go on, you get to the end, and after a month of being home you wait for the end of the year to come to set off again."
What do you miss about the desert when you are home?
"The desert is fascinating in all its aspects: from the heat it gets during the day to the cold it sometimes gets at night. It's fascinating to live in absolute silence, and sometimes you even have adventures, like the one last year: we were stuck out in the desert, and back home they were going crazy to know where we were because they couldn't see us. It's a lot of things put together that you're passionate about."
Of all your Dakar participations, is there one you remember in particular?
"You could say the best one was the third and last one in Africa. That was the first Dakar in which there were only two of us in the crew, because the previous ones I had done together with Giacomo Vismara, who is a veteran and is the one who taught me. In that one, however, I participated only with the navigator and we made it all the way to Dakar. A little bit battered, but we got there."
