Hero MotoSport Team Rally got off to an excellent start at the prologue of Dakar 2021 with Sebastian Buhler finishing at P5, Joaquim Rodrigues in P10 and Bengaluru rider C S Santosh in P35. After completing the initial administrative and technical checks successfully, the trio rolled off the ceremonial podium on January 2 to mark the official beginning of their Dakar 2021 campaign in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
The 11km prologue stage determines the riders’ starting order and with P5, P10 and P35 locked in for Hero MotoSport Team Rally by riders Sebastian Buhler, Joaquin Rodrigues and C S Santosh respectively, the team looks forward to a strong start on Sunday’s (January 3) stage. The route on day 2 of Dakar will take them from Jeddah to Bisha with a 277km special stage and a total run of 622km.
All Indian motorsport fans have their eyes on C S Santosh who’s had a tough off season with only little time for testing. Commenting on the performance in the prologue race, C S Santosh said, “Today we did the prologue stage and as with every Dakar, there were a lot of nerves, excitement and butterflies in the stomach. It was only 11 kms today but I had a good feeling on the bike. There’s two weeks of racing ahead of us and I am looking forward to spending these on the motorcycle and ride as fast as I can.”
Sebastian Buhler, Hero MotoSport’s current lead rider said, “It was a short prologue stage today but it went very good. I finished 5th which I think is a good position to start the real stage tomorrow. It is going to be a long and tough stage but we have prepared well, so we will see how it goes from here.”
Dakar is the world’s toughest, most brutal and most unpredictable rally and despite that, the teams have still shown up at the event in a spectacular display of grit and racing spirit. We recently caught up with C S Santosh to talk about the season, the new bike and also the added challenge of preparing for the world’s toughest race amidst the pandemic, you can read about it here. Tune in to 1Motorsports for live coverage of the rally and watch this space for regular updates on the 2021 Dakar rally.