Dakar 2021 Stage 5: Ashish Raorane Out Of Dakar 2021, Hero MotoSports Remains In Top 20, And Noah Bounces Back

Dakar Rally 2021 continued with the conclusion of stage five that covered a distance of 662km from Riyadh to Al Qaisumah. This stage served up a multitude of challenges for its participants, especially the 456km of special stage that faced a risk of occasional navigational errors as well as tough dunes that could flatten tyres pretty easily. Unfortunately, stage 5 saw another Indian rider face an unfortunate exit from the rally. Here’s everything that transpired.

It was a relatively consistent result for the Hero MotoSports squad in the bikes category with 20th place for Sebastian Buhler and 22nd for Joaquim Rodrigues. Harith Noah bounced back from a difficult stage 4 to finish 41st. Ashish Raorane’s rookie Dakar campaign came to an abrupt end as he crashed out of the rally while making decent progress on the stage. Suffering an impact to the head, he was immediately transported to Ha'il, with tests and CT scans reported as clear. He will be under observation for 24-48 hours in the ICU.

As for CS Santosh, Hero MotoSports has stated that his crash in stage 4 has led to a dislocated right shoulder and head trauma. He will be put in an induced coma to aid his recovery. Stage 5 has left Rodrigues 19th overall, with Buhler in 20th. Harith Noah currently stands in 39th position as the sole remaining Indian rider in the rally.

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The cars category saw Toyota’s Giniel de Villiers comeback from a very difficult run of previous stages to take the stage win, 58 seconds ahead of Brian Baragwanath (Century Racing) with Stephane Peterhansel (X-Raid Mini JCW) rounding off the top three. Despite not winning a stage so far, Stephane Peterhansel’s consistency has helped him extend his overall lead to Toyota’s Nasser Al-Attiyah and teammate Carlos Sainz.

Topsy turvy results continued its theme in the bikes category, with Kevin Benavides (Monster Energy Honda) taking the stage win ahead of  teammate Jose Ignacio Cornejo and Toby Price (KTM). This result makes Kevin Benavides the sixth different leader of the overall bikes category with former leader Xavier de Soultrait second, and teammate Jose Ignacio Cornejo rounding off the top three.

In the trucks category, Andrey Karginov (Kamaz) claimed his first stage win of the rally over Aliaksei Vishneuski (Maz-Sportauto), with teammate Dmitry Sotnikov third in the end. Dmitry Sotnikov continues to lead the overall standings, with teammate Anton Shibalov second and Martin Macik (Big Shock Racing) in third position.

Stage 6 will cover 618km from Al Qaisumah to Ha’il, with 448km of it being a special stage. After that will be a rest day before racing action resumes on January 10 with stage 7.