The success story continues. For the fourth time, Nasser Al-Attiyah wins the Dakar Rally Rally, this time together with Toyota and Reiger. Although he won only two of the twelve stages over a total distance of 8404 kilometres, Nassar Al-Attiyah still managed to triumph with his new Toyota Gazoo Racing Hilux pick-up truck. For many years, the Reiger rally customers have always been at the front of the field. First to sixth place in the final ranking were achieved by customers with dampers from KW automotive's Reiger Suspension brand. From the 408 registered vehicles in the classification categories Car, Truck, Quad, Lightweight Prototype Vehicles, and Side by Side (SxS) as well as Classic, Reiger equipped over 20 percent of the starting field. In the Truck and Lightweight Prototype Vehicles categories, Reiger customers also celebrated all classification stage victories. With the Audi RS Q e-tron, Audi has launched a new era in off-road rallying. Of the three electric-powered vehicles that competed for the first time this year, the Swedish duo Ekstrom-Bergkvist finished ninth.

Off-road specialist Reiger Suspension plays Champions League in numerous motorsport branches worldwide, including races on paved roads and circuits. In motocross alone, Reiger Suspension has managed to equip a world champion for 24 years in a row. In off-road motorsport, Dakar is and remains the highlight of the off-road racing world. Whether in the deserts of Africa, South America or on the Arabian Peninsula, there is no other race with higher demands. In the final standings, Qatari Nassar Al-Attiyah and his co-pilot Mathieu Baumel have already taken four victories in Dakar after their victories in 2011, 2015, and 2019. In the #211 Bahrain Raid Extreme Prodrive BRX, France's Sebastien Loeb came second with teammate Fabian Lurquin, followed by Saudi Arabian Yazeed Al-Rajhi and Briton Michael Orr in the Overdrive Toyota (#205) who took third. Orlando Terranova of Argentina and his navigator Daniel Oliveras Carreras of Spain (Bahrain Raid Extreme Prodrive BRX #221) finished fourth. South Africans Giniel de Villiers and Dennis Murphy in the Toyota Gazoo Racing Hilux Pickup (#207) finished fifth. Jakub Przygonski from Poland and his German co-pilot Timo Gottschalk in the X-Raid Mini JCW Team Mini (#203) finished sixth.

Development partner for Audi Sport

When car manufacturers want to be inventive and cross borders, the decades-long expertise of the KW automotive group is in demand. Audi Sport participated in Dakar with three electrically powered Audi RS Q e-trons equipped with Reiger dampers. The hydraulic power steering in the RS Q e-tron is also a Reiger development exclusive to Audi Sport, as is the integrated lift jack. In electric rally cars, the front and rear axles are not mechanically connected. Each axle is driven by a motor-generator unit (MGU) from the current Audi FE07. To charge the battery while driving, Audi Sport uses the efficient 2.0-litre TFSI engine from the Audi RS 5 DTM race car. These three Audi prototypes have already made motorsport history and set new standards as the first representatives through the Dakar event. As already mentioned, the Swedes Mattias Ekstrom and Emil Bergkvist finished ninth. The Audi teams won four stages (T1-Ultimate class) and secured 14 podiums in the daily rankings. The outcome exceeded expectations!

Reiger motorsport teams win in trucks as well

The Russian KAMAZ Master off-road trucks were also equipped with Reiger Suspension. The two Ivecos of Petronas Team de Rooy and Mammoet Rallysport Team de Rooy finished on the podium in positions four to six. First place went to last year's winner Dmitry Sotnikov (#500), second place went to Eduard Nikolaev (#505), Anton Shibalov (#501) was third and fourth place went to the fourth KAMAZ Master Truck with Andrey Karginov (#509). Janus Van Kastern (#504) and Martin van den Brink (#506) finished fifth and sixth with their Iveco trucks. Drivers of off-road vehicles such as the Jeep Gladiator and Ford Ranger will soon also be able to benefit from decades of experience in the tough off-road motorsport world. The new "Street & Trail" dampers will offer improved ride safety, driving stability and damping reserve, both on unpaved and paved roads. www.reigersuspensions.com.

About KW automotive:
The KW entrepreneurial group includes the suspension manufacturer KW automotive with its brands KW suspensions, ST suspensions, ap Sportfahrwerke, as well as the SimRacing brands TrackTime and Ascher Racing. With its immense suspension portfolio, state-of-the-art production technology and its development and test center, KW successfully operates in all markets for more than 25 years. Over the past years, KW automotive has developed over 16 distinct damping technologies in order to fulfill its own requirement of supplying "the perfect suspension for every demand". Beside its core business, the development and production of manually and adaptively adjustable coilover kits and other suspension components for the aftermarket as well as the range of accessories of various automobile manufacturers in the premium segment, the business field of original equipment for special models and super sports cars of the automotive industry is developing tremendously positively for the German suspension manufacturer. Since KW is a development partner of sophisticated controlled suspension systems, the manufacturer disposes of the entire product portfolio of hydraulics, electronics, sensor technology, control units and damper control systems as well as the necessary know-how for the application and tuning of complex vehicle performance systems from a single source. KW has become an indispensable part of customer motor sports throughout the past years and produces homologated racing dampers and suspensions for a constantly growing number of racing cars of several manufacturers. Worldwide, successful racing teams rely on the patented valve technology of KW Competition suspensions. The entrepreneurial group has subsidiaries in the most significant markets, such as Belgium, Great Britain, China, Japan, Switzerland, Taiwan and the USA. 360 employees from the 1200 employees worldwide of the Group are located at the headquarters in Fichtenberg. Software and hardware solutions are further business segments as well as events for virtual motor sports in the scope of the brand RaceRoom. Equally, the suspension manufacturers AL-KO Damping Unit, Belltech and Reiger Suspension as well as the alloy wheels manufacturer BBS are brands of the KW entrepreneurial group. www.reigersuspension.com

Press Contact:
Christian Schmidt * E-Mail: Christian.Schmidt@kwautomotive.de * Tel. +49.79.71.9630-547
KW automotive GmbH * Aspachweg 14 * 74427 Fichtenberg * Web: www.kwautomotive.de