Silk Way Rally Day 3: Hero MotoSport Team Rally riders finish on eight and tenth postions

The third stage of the Silk Way Rally saw a slower pace compared to the two previous stages. Hero MotoSport Team Rally’s Oriol Mena finished at the eight place maintaining his overall sixth position in the overall. Paulo Goncalves lost some time in getting out of a deep hole, right at the beginning and thereafter opted for a safe and steady approach finishing the stage in tenth place. He dropped down to the fifth position in the overall standings. Monster Energy Honda’s Kevin Benavides finished at the first place maintain his top position on the leaderboard

The third stage traversed through 691km, including the 243km special section which took the competitors through the heart of the Mongolian landscape. It was full of tricky navigation riddled with path crossings and parallel tracks. Some bit of uphill riding and twisty tracks made the stage more challenging for the riders as they arrived at the Ulaanbaatar bivouac.

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After Completing the stage Paulo Goncalves said “I didn’t have a great start today as my bike got stuck in a big hole just after 2km into the stage and I lost some time getting out of there. After that, I did not feel that confident about pushing hard so I decided to keep it steady. I lost some time today but what is important that I crossed the finish line and got my bike safely to the bivouac. It’s still early stages in the rally, so I will continue to keep my focus on taking it one day at a time.”

His teammate Oriol Mena said  “I felt good riding today and enjoyed the Mongolian terrain. I had a small issue with my road book equipment but other than that no issues. Happy to finish another stage today and looking forward to continue in the same way in the next stages.”

The overall rankings after stage three

1.Kevin Benavides, Monster Energy Honda- 05:20:42
2. Joan Barreda, Monster Energy Honda- 05:23:51
3. Luciano Benavides, Redbull KTM- 05:28:10

5.Paulo Goncalves, Hero MotoSports- 05:37:38
6. Oriol Mena, Hero MotoSports- 05:48:07