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Santosh makes steady start at Rally of Morocco
NEW DELHI: CS Santosh of Hero MotoSports Team Rally was placed 31st after the first full stage at the Oilybia Rally Morocco, the final round of the FIM Cross Country
NEW DELHI: CS Santosh of Hero MotoSports Team Rally was placed 31st after the first full stage at the Oilybia Rally Morocco, the final round of the FIM Cross Country Rally World Championship, on Monday.
Santosh and teammate Joaquim Rodrigues got off to a mixed start on the opening day — the 120-km special stage — on Monday. The Portuguese rider had a crash early on while the Indian stayed out of trouble right through the day.
Rodrigues, who was starting 12th after his good result in the prologue stage on Sunday, ran into trouble early on.
“Today’s stage wasn’t the best for me,” he said. “I had a crash at the beginning in the sand and broke my road-book so I had to use it manually. I was losing a lot of time. Then I lost my way twice. The second part, I couldn’t go as quick as I wanted because of that road-book problem. There was a lot of dust and the guys behind started catching up with me. Not much I could do, really. I tried not to crash again and bring the bike home. Tomorrow is a long stage and hopefully we will do better than today.”
Santosh, however, was in his elements on the sandy terrain.
“The whole stage was really fast,” said the Indian. “The first part was kind of difficult in the sand. I took my time getting used to it and made no navigational errors. I did my own thing and overall it was a good day. I got into the feeling of the rally. Tomorrow we have the first part of the marathon stage, looking forward to that.”
TOUGH CHALLENGE
The first part of the marathon stage (291 km) on Tuesday is expected to be a tough challenge for all the riders as there will be no service support in the evening. The riders have to maintain their bikes own their own.
The rally began on Sunday in Agadir with a prologue stage. Rodrigues finished the super special stage in 12th place while Santosh was classified 26th, which determined their start order for the opening stage on Monday.
