Dakar 2017, Stage 10: Santosh ascends, TVS Sherco's Metge shows strong pace
Hero MotoSports Rally Team's CS Santosh continued his upward trend in Dakar Rally, as TVS Sherco's Adrien Metge among the quickest in the long Stage 10.
Photo by: Hero MotoSports Team Rally
On resumption of the Dakar Rally on Thursday, the 10th stage ran from Chilecito to San Juan in Argentina, featuring 449km of timed section which was split by a 90km neutralisation zone.
Santosh advanced all through the day on his Speedbrain 450 bike to finish 37th in the stage, further enhancing the Indian's overall position to sit 51st - up by nine places from Stage 8.
Teammate Joaquim Rodrigues had a mixed day after he dropped to 30th by the third way point, but showed much better pace then on to finish 19th in the stage.
Even with the late inroads , the Portuguese rider lost his Top 10 position in the overall standings to end up 14th, over two hours behind leader KTM's Sam Sunderland.
Meanwhile, TVS Sherco rider Metge had a superb run to start his day with the Frenchman topping the timesheets at second, third and fourth way points respectively.
His improved showing in the stage saw him finish seventh on his RTR 450, only 8m18s behind Honda's Stage 10 winner Joan Barreda.
As a result, Metge made 12 places to be 26th in overall standings. Whereas, his experienced teammate Joan Pedrero dropped chunk of places to be 45th by the first way point.
The Spanish rider then made steady progress to finish 16th in the stage, as well as the overall standings.
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