- Joaquim Rodrigues lost significant time after taking a wrong route
- Adrien Metge finished second in stage 3
- Jocopo Cerutti of Solarys Racing won the third stage
The longest stage of the six-day PanAfrica Rally came to an end with the riders conquering 445km of tough terrain of Merzouga. The third stage witnessed some exciting action as the riders attempted to make full use of this crucial day.
It was a mixed bag of outcomes for Hero MotoSports. The team witnessed Joaquim Rodrigues slipping down to third position in Stage 3 after outperforming everyone on the previous day. He lost a significant amount of time after taking a wrong route while crossing a tricky river bed. On the other hand, Indian rider CS Santosh had a solid run despite having a minor crash. He climbed up to the seventh position in the third stage after finishing eleventh in Stage 2. In the overall rider standings, while JRod secured second spot, CS Santosh broke into the top five.
Shero TVS’ Adrien Metge had a close fight with Hero’s JRod and finished this stage at second position. However, Adrien topped the overall rider standings by clocking commendable timing in the previous stages. Meanwhile, his teammate Johny Aubert had to settle at fourteenth spot for the stage as well as overall ranking. As for Lorenzo Santolino and Michael Metge of TVS, both the riders had to quit the competition due to technical reasons. Notably, the winner of this stage was Jocopo Cerutti of Solarys Racing Team who maintained a good 4min 39sec lead from Adrien Metge in second position. Jocopo currently sits in third position in the overall ranking.
The fourth stage of PanAfrica Rally will be a penultimate stage which will span across 280km of the varied terrain of Merzouga.
