Hero MotoSports Team Rally riders continued their good performance at the Silkway Rally 2019, with a fantastic run today to tame Stage 2 with great authority, breaching the top three rankings.
Oriol Mena in particular was on a roll today, relentlessly pushing ahead to catch several riders ahead of him. His performance resulted in a second-place finish for him, enabling him to climb up to sixth position in the overall rankings. Paulo Goncalves was not the one to be left behind, as he too, made a blazing run to get another solid stage under his belt. With a third-place finish today, he moved up by a few of places to third place in the overall rankings, breaking into the top three early in the rally.
The first in the series of long stages of the Silkway Rally covering 411.5 kms including a special stage of 212kms was held from Baykalsk to Ulan-ude.
The stage offered fast navigation in a diverse set of landscapes to the competitors, starting with a stony broken road section filled with water holes, then following it up with an endure style special section passing through the forest, river bridges, Siberian hills ending in a fast dash to the finish line across steppe plateaus.
Paulo Goncalves (Comp No: 4):”It was a good stage for me today. There were a lot of stones and water fills in the beginning but 90% of the stage was in the forest terrain. Towards the end it became a bit slippery but the bike handled superbly. It’s just the beginning of the rally so my focus is on closing all the stages in the same way for the rest of the rally.”
Oriol Mena (Comp No: 25): “I rode really well today and am quite happy with the results. It was a fast stage today with muddy holes to start with. I rode carefully in this section to avoid any crashes. After about a 100kms the terrain changed into a fast piste and hard ground. Finally after 150 kms of eating a lot of dust at the back of the lead pack, I pushed hard and managed to overtake the rider in front of me. I am feeling good on the bike and quite confident, so happy to see the back of one more day.”
Provisional Rankings of the Stage 2
Sam Sunderland Redbull KTM 02h 20m 30s
Oriol Mena Hero MotoSports +39s
Paulo Goncalves Hero MotoSports +50s
Kevin Benavides Monster Energy Honda +01m 07s
Joan Barreda Monster Energy Honda +02m 40s
Overall Rankings at the end of the Stage 2
Kevin Benavides Monster Energy Honda 02h 52m 28s
Sam Sunderland Red Bull KTM +08s
Paulo Goncalves Hero MotoSports +01m 19s
Luciano Benavides Redbull KTM +02m 25s
Joan Barreda Monster Energy Honda +02m 39s
Oriol Mena Hero MotoSports +03m 03s
