Dakar 2018, stage 2: Santosh top Indian, Sherco TVS edges ahead

Sunday’s 267 km stage ran around the dunes of Pisco in Peru -  with 90% of the stage off track - posing severe navigation challenge for the competitors.

Santosh lost ground en route to the first checkpoint, but made up for that with a much faster run between WP2 and WP3. He eventually finished the stage in 29th place with a time of 3hr22m51s and holds the 28th spot in the overall rankings.

Although the Hero rider has dropped 15 places since Saturday, the first stage of Dakar - which comprised of a brief 31 km timed section - was hardly a good indicator of the pecking order.

“Today was really tricky, it was a lot of navigation,” Santosh told Motorsport.com. “But since the cars were [out before the bikes] there were lots of tracks everywhere.

“Overall the terrain was really fast and a lot of cut dunes and they went into really soft dunes and massive dunes. So it had everything today. It’s quite a tricky and tough stage.”

Aravind KP sits four spots behind Santosh in the general standings (32nd) after posting the 40th fastest time of the day. The Indian duo are separated by 12m04s, but are nearly half an hour adrift of standings leader Joan Barreda (Honda).

Meanwhile, Aravind’s teammate Juan Pedrero Garcia put Sherco TVS ahead of Hero, claiming the 22nd spot with a strong run in stage 2.

However, there was trouble elsewhere at the Indo-French squad with Adrien Metge having to retire with a fall in the dunes.

Finally, Hero’s new recruit Oriel Mena set the 27th fastest time of the day and occupies the same spot in the overall standings.

Interview by Sergio Lillo