Rally Dakar 2017 sees Toby Price and Sebastien Loeb wining 2nd stage

Australian Toby Price won the second stage of the Rally Dakar 2017 in the motorcycle category with a lead of more than 3 minutes over his team-mate Matthias Walkner and almost four minutes over Paulo Goncalves. Xavier de Soultrait also put in a solid performance with the day’s fourth best time.

In the car race, Sébastien Loeb let rip with his Peugeot over a route on which the Frenchman was able to focus on speed rather than navigation, pushing Nasser-Al Attiyah, who opened the road on January 3, 2017, to more than a minute behind him as well as taking the lead in the general standings from the Qatari. In third and fourth, Carlos Sainz and Giniel de Villiers lie in wait, but Stéphane Peterhansel again lost precious minutes.

 In the quad race, Pablo Copetti fought an impressive duel with Nelson Sanabria and triumphed over the Paraguayan at the end of the special. The Argentinean is the new category leader in his native territory.

In the truck category, Martin Van Den Brink put in the best performance with his first stage victory on the Dakar, which also sees him take command of the general standings in front of the day’s runner up, Russian Dmitry Sotnikov driving for Kamaz.

Toby Price lived up to his race number 1 by dominating the battle on this second stage. The Australian, the first non-European to have won the Dakar, went on all out attack to leave his team-mate Matthias Walkner and the leading Honda ridden by Paulo Goncalves trailing in his wake. His main rivals of 2016, Pablo Quintanilla and Stefan Svitko are even further back, whilst Joan Barreda has just managed to creep into the top 10.

Meanwhile, thanks to the performance of Sébastien Loeb, Peugeot increases its total of stage victories on the Dakar to 59, the same amount as Volkswagen. Stage 3 on January 4, has started in San Miguel de Tucumán and completes in San Salvador de Jujuy, a total distance of 780 km.

Hero Motosports Team Rally riders:  Both Hero Motosports Team Rally riders, Joaquim Rodrigues of Portugal and C.S. Santosh of India, kept up the good work from stage one in the tricky second stage of the 2017 Dakar.

 The riders started from the Resistencia bivouac at the crack of dawn with 803 km on the agenda, out of which 275 km comprised of the special timed section. It was always going to be a tough day for the men at the handlebar with temperatures touching the high 40s as the day progressed. Rodrigues, who entered the second special in 16th place after his stupendous opening run, encountered problems when his GPS stopped working, forcing him to slow down to avoid making mistakes. Despite, being forced to cut back on pace, Rodrigues rode well enough to drop just six places as he completed the timed section in 2 hour 51 minutes and 53 seconds that put him in 22nd place in the provisional general classifications. “This stage was more difficult than yesterday because there were a lot of unmarked water puddles in the stage. I slid out in one of these and crashed my bike. My GPS got drowned in water and stopped working. Without the GPS I was running the risk of a crash. So, I slowed down. But I managed to get to the end relying on my road book,” said Rodrigues after reaching the bivouac in Tucuman.

For Santosh, it was a marked improvement in performance. Starting the special stage in 47th place, he decided to play safe in the first part of the timed section because heavy rains in the days preceding the rally created large pools of water that were not marked on the roadbook. But in the latter half of his run, Santosh found his rhythm as was able to catch a few riders. He completed the 275-km special in 3 hour 7 minutes 41 seconds, which helped him to slot into 37th place in the provisional general classification—a gain of impressive 10 place over his overnight position of 47.

 “It was the first real stage of the Dakar and it was really fast. In the first half, there were a lot of cautions and there were lots of water puddles that were not on the roadbook. So, I took it easy in that bit and in the latter half of the stage I started getting a good feeling and was able to catch some guys. But it was really dusty. It was a kind of stage where you could pay a big price for a small mistake and ruin your rally,” said Santosh.

 The third stage that will be run from San Miguel De Tucuman to San Salvador Jujuy will see dramatic changes in temperature and altitude. On the 780-km stage, out which 416 km will be marked by competitive distance, the riders will climb rapidly in the Andes, reaching the maximum height of this Dakar at 5,000 metres during a crossing of a high pass, before finishing the special at 3,000 metres.  

Sherco TVS Factory Rally team: Riders of the Sherco TVS Factory Rally team Juan Pedrero Garcia came in 9^th after the second stage, while KP Aravind came in 125^th and Adrien Metge 124^th. Juan stood 9th in Stage 2 of the rally and finished only  8'09" behind the stage winner. He is still very well placed in the top 10. Our other two riders Aravind KP and Adrien Metge stood at 125th and 124th positions respectively. The race for 3rd stage has begun and is scheduled between San Miguel de Tucuman and San Salvador de Jujuy (780 km including a 364 km special).