- It was Joaquim’s best performance till date
- First position was retained by Honda’s Ricky Brabec
- Husqvarna’s Pablo slips down to fifth spot
At the end of the 323km stage 7 of the Dakar Rally 2019, Honda rider Ricky Brabec returned at the first position with the stage 6 leader Pablo Quintanilla (Husqvarna) slipping down to the fifth spot. While the third position was retained by KTM’s Toby Price, the second rank was clinched by Yamaha rider Adrien Van Beveren who was fifth in the previous stage. The fastest rider in this stage was Sam Sunderland (KTM) whose timing (3:51:41) promoted him from seventh to fourth number in the overall ranking.
Hero MotoSports’ Joaquim Rodrigues rode skillfully which resulted in the Portuguese recording his best stage time till now. Reaching the last waypoint in 4:10:55, J Rod finished the stage 11th with his overall rank settling at 24th. Meanwhile, his team mate Oriol Mena crashed in this stage but managed to get back on the saddle and retained his consistent 13th position in the general classification.
Riders of the Sherco TVS team also managed to keep up the pace with all of them carrying forward a similar ranking as the previous stage. An improvement was witnessed in Michael Metge’s performance who concluded 15th in the stage with his overall ranking ascending from 36th to 31st. Meanwhile, Adrien Metge settled for the 32nd position and the Indian rider CS Santosh was seen trying to catch up with the rest ending at 47th rank.
The stage 8 of the Dakar Rally 2019 spans across 360km (timed) along the route charted from San Juan de Marcona to Pisco.
