Rodrigues in top ten for Hero MotoSports

Rally rookie "J-Rod" Rodrigues delivered a steady stage, finishing the day in tenth position for Hero MotoSports in Afriquia Merzouga Rally 2016, Stage 1. CS Santosh, his teammate, finished 17^th. The Afriquia Merzouga Rally is no walk in the park. That´s what the riders had to acknowledge on the first real day of racing in the Moroccon desert. As temperatures soared above 40 degrees celsius the route through the big dunes of Merzouga and Erg Chebbi provided plenty of tricky navigation and sandy challenges.

Rodrigues, the Portuguese stayed out of trouble and was quite satisfied with his result. "Today was my first rally stage", he said. "I didn´t make too many mistakes, just one at a checkpoint. It is really difficult with the navigation and it is pretty hot out here. I´m happy to finish the way I did, it was a good experience. Tomorrow I will try to avoid mistakes and then hopefully make progress throughout the week," he said in a press statement.

Following his result in the previous day’s prologue, CS Santosh was the first rider to enter the special test. The popular Indian had some navigational issues, but kept calm and never lost his focus.

"I was a bit nervous opening the track. But the team told me to go ahead and be confident. I had a good feeling, then I started to make some small mistakes. I finally found someone who handled the navigation very well, that helped me and I brought it home. The rally is very, very tough. It deserves to be part of the Dakar series. You don´t need a crystal ball to see that the next four days will be very challenging, " he added.