Both Hero Motosports Team Rally riders, Joaquim Rodrigues of Portugal and C.S. Santosh of India, kept up the good work from yesterday in the tricky second stage of the 2017 Dakar.
The riders started from the Resistencia bivouac at the crack of dawn with 803 km on the agenda, out of which 275 km comprised of the special timed section. It was always going to be a tough day for the men at the handlebar with temperatures touching the high 40s as the day progressed.
Rodrigues, who entered the second special in 16th place after his stupendous opening run, encountered problems when his GPS stopped working, forcing him to slow down to avoid making mistakes. Despite, being forced to cut back on pace, Rodrigues rode well enough to drop just six places as he completed the timed section in 2 hour 51 minutes and 53 seconds that put him in 22nd place in the provisional general classifications. “This stage was more difficult than yesterday because there were a lot of unmarked water puddles in the stage. I slid out in one of these and crashed my bike. My GPS got drowned in water and stopped working. Without the GPS I was running the risk of a crash. So, I slowed down. But I managed to get to the end relying on my road book,