After a welcome two days of rest at La Paz, the Dakar 2017 is back on track with the marathon stages 7 and 8 spread over Day 8 and Day 9. With the Bolivian rains wreaking havoc, stage 7 had to run a shortened course of just 161 km, less than half of the originally planned route. Being a marathon stage, riders will not receive any external help and any damages to the machines will have to be dealt with by themselves.
Honda riders dominated stage 7 with all four of their riders finishing in the top 6 with Ricky Brabec claiming the honours for the stage. Joan Barreda lost pace owing to a navigational error but still managed P4. Team Honda, with an attempt to get back into podium contention, went flat out through stage 7 but with the course shortened, were unable to make sizeable improvements. With the spirits high, they would go flat out on stage 8 as well to spice up the competition up top.
After Toby Price crashed out of Dakar 2017, teammate Sam Sunderland has risen to the occasion and has ridden consistently at good pace to gain a 17 minute lead for the overall standings. Quintanilla leads Beveren by five minutes. Xavier de Soultrait, the French maverick, is sixth overall while the Hondas of Goncalves and Barreda claimed P8 and P9, overall.
The maiden Dakar campaign for Hero-Speedbrain is turning out to be a fairy-tale for the Indian team with their lead rider Joaquim Rodrigues just 7 minutes shy off the top 10. Teammate CS Santosh has clawed back to P67 overall after finishing at P38 for stage 7 and will be looking to improve his standing at the end of today’s marathon stage.
TVS-Sherco, which led the Indian campaign in the beginning, is now at P22 overall after Pedrero Garcia suffered an engine failure and a penalty pushing him back to P44 earlier in the race. In stage 7, Garcia finished at P19 behind Hero’s J-Rod on P18. The surprise on Day 7 for the Indian contingent was delivered by novice Adrian Metge by being the 12th fastest man for the day, improving his overall standing to P41. The French rider had lost time earlier in the race while towing Garcia to the pits and sliding down the ranks in the process.
Day 9 will see the riders competing over 492 km of virgin track while crossing over to Argentina over mountain passes and sand dunes from Uyuni to Salta with a total distance of 892 km to be covered. The Dakar has just passed the halfway stage and the battles are going to get fierce especially with Hondas wanting to go flat out and the KTMs wanting to continue with their domination. Stay tuned.
