Dakar 2020: Tough Stage 6 For Both Hero And Sherco-TVS Racing But Santosh Shines!

Jan 11, 2020
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2 min read

The Fast Indian has now climbed up to 36th spot in the overall rankings

With a liaison section of nearly 300km and a timed section of 478km, Day 6 proved to be the toughest day of the Dakar 2020 so far. Hero MotoSports Rally Team had a mixed bag of results. Ending the day in 8th position, Paulo Goncalves keeps his brilliant run alive. But that’s not it. A more positive bit of news was that C S Santosh claimed the 32nd spot on the day.

This bodes well for the second half of the rally for Santosh as he is already in 36th position. Goncalves too improves his overall tally to 46th spot. If only he didn’t have a miserable day 3, where he was forced to sit out and change his engine, he would have been jostling for the top 10 spots.

But Hero had to face yet another setback. Sebastian Buhler’s super consistent run was brought to an abrupt end due to an engine failure. This is Hero’s third engine-related malady in the rally with Joaquim Rodrigues facing a similar fate on Stage 2 and Paulo on Day 3. It is likely that the German rider will soldier on in the ‘Dakar Experience’ class like JRod, who finished 27th on the day.

There was very little to cheer for in the Sherco-TVS Racing camp as well. Adrien Metge seemed to be the only rider from the Indo-French team who had a half-decent day on the saddle. He was 16 minutes off the leader, finishing 12th fastest in the stage. Metge maintains his 11th position in the overall standings.

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Teammate Lorenzo Santolino had a tough time aboard his RTR 450, only managing a 47th position finish on the day. An issue with the bike’s electronics meant he lost a lot of time on the stage. Still, he finished ahead of Johnny Aubert who had a nasty fall 2km before the finish line. Aubert’s issues began early on in the stage, forcing him to make repairs. The Frenchman climbed back on the bike only to have his Dakar 2020 cut short in a cruel manner. The medic team had to evacuate him from the special as he suffered severe injuries to the head and ribs.

TVS’ Harith Noah too seemed to have lost a lot of time in today’s stage. It seemed like he had stopped to help out Johnny in the early part of the stage, exchanging throttle cables. Hence, he rode the entire stage with a shoelace for a throttle cable. Still an exemplary effort on his part to finish the day in 106th spot.

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