Dakar 2020: Sherco-TVS Take Charge Among Indian Contingent After Third Stage

Three of Sherco-TVS Racing’s riders placed in the top 20 overall after a grueling 427km super marathon stage in which mechanical issues forces Hero MotoSports Team Rally’s Paulo Goncalves to fall outside the top 100

Things can change in a heartbeat in cross-country rallying, so it stands to reason that it would happen in the biggest cross-country rally of them all. The 2020 Dakar Rally saw Sherco-TVS Racing manage to end the 427km super marathon stage with three of their four riders in the top 20 overall standings.

Adrien Metge was 10^th in the stage to be placed 12^th overall while Lorenzo Santolino was 12^th, which was good for 16^th overall. Johnny Aubert ended up 18^th overall after recording the 22^nd fastest time in the stage that started in Neom and ended there after taking a loop among canyons followed by open and fast sections.

However, there was heartbreak for TVS Racing’s Harith Noah. After he had gained 40 places yesterday to recover from being 105^th overall after the opening stage to 65^th at the end of the second; technical issues put paid to the Dakar Rally debutant’s dreams of finishing his first Dakar.

Noah, riding with swelling around his left eye following the opening day crash, couldn’t take the start after his RTR 450 refused to start.

It was a similar issue to the one that put paid to the challenge of Hero’s Joaquim Rodrigues, who couldn’t even start the opening stage. Rodrigues has been riding on the stages in the ‘Dakar Experience’ category, which bars him from being classified in the overall standings. Noah will finish the remainder of the Dakar Rally in the same format.

Hero MotoSports’ bad day

Technical issues also struck Hero’s star rider Paulo Goncalves, who took just under five hours to complete only the first 43km of the stage. To put that into perspective, the winner of the third stage took just less than three and a half hours to finish the entire 427km.

This was on account of an engine malfunction on his Hero 450RR, which caused him to desperately repair the bike himself. As a result, the 2015 Dakar Rally runner-up has fallen well outside the top 100 in the overall classification. Goncalves had been 13^th overall at the end of the second stage.

The last-minute replacement for injured Oriol Mena – Sebastian Buhler – was 23^rd overall after finishing 21^st in the stage.

The sole Indian in the overall classification – none other than India’s Dakar Rally pioneer CS Santosh – ended up gaining three spots from his standing after the second stage, to finish 44^th overall after stage three.

Santosh admitted to making errors in navigation as he struggled to find his way both before and after the mid-stage refueling point. That resulted in him finishing the stage with the 51^st fastest time out of over 120 finishers.

There is no let-up tomorrow either as the route leaves Neom and heads to Al-Ula, covering a total distance of 676km, out of which 453km are timed.