Silk Way Rally Day 4: Hero MotoSports Team Rally retain positions in top ten
The fourth day of the Silk Way Rally was the first day of the two-day-long marathon stage. The stage was a super fast stage with riders clocking an average of 110kmph. This was a marathon stage so the riders did not receive any assistance from their service crew after the stage ended, and will only meet their crews at the end of the next leg.
Hero Motosports’ Team Rally riders played a safe game and successfully reached the marathon bivouac without any hiccups. Oriol Mena finished the fourth stage at the eighth position climbing up to fifth position overall. Paulo Goncalves finished at the ninth position going down to eighth position overall. Both the riders aware of the absence of service crews, rode with caution to avoid any major issues with their bikes.
The riders traversed through a special 470km stage overcoming the challenges posed by the of dry creek beds, low hills and the endless steppe roads of Mongolia. The second half of the route offered some beautiful landscapes on a track across stony pyramids and rocks but with hard navigation and high-speed tracks on the steppe roads before ending near the Ulaanbaatar bivouac.
After completing the stage Oriol Mena said, “Today was a very fast stage, maybe even the fastest I have done so far. I did quite well overall except for a small mistake in one point. Happy to see the back of the longest special stage and reach the marathon bivouac safely. Looking forward to the next stage.
His teammate Oriol Mena said “It was a long day with 470km to be done on very fast tracks. The bike worked really well and I had no problems at all today. I am feeling good and ready about the next stage and will keep pushing myself to better and better.”
Overall Rankings at the end of Stage 4
1. Sam Sunderland RedBull KTM– 09:38:55
2. Luciano Benavides Redbull KTM +05min 11sec
3. Joan Barreda Monster Energy Honda +05min 12sec
5. Oriol Mena Hero MotoSports +16min 52sec
8. Paulo Goncalves Hero MotoSports +18min 23sec
