Arvind KP rides brilliantly to finish Stage 6: Dakar Rally
San Juan de Marcona, 14 Jan 2019: After a long wait of about 20 minutes, at 2.20am (IST) Arvind Prabhakar’s time was up on the Dakar site after the previous rider finished the WayPoint 7 and it was only a matter of time that Aravind KP finished the tough and challenging Stage 6 838 km with an impressive time. The Sherco TVS Rally Factory team rider was doing extremely well before losing time in the fag end. Nevertheless, he finished overall 48th, his bike number after a brilliant 44th in the stage classification.
Meanwhile, his teammate, the top-flying rookie rider Lorenzo Santolino bowed out of the Dakar 2019, 33km into the stage as he was air-lifted for medical attention. The Sherco-TVS rider was one of the breakout stars of the Dakar so far, with his best-ever finish to the day coming just two days prior on Stage 5. He had to be airlifted to Lima where further assessment of his injuries will take place.
The team had a day to forget with just a glimmer of hope coming from KP Aravind who rode extremely well to finish the day 44th, climbing up quite a few spots in the overall rankings. He is currently 48th and should aim to climb a few more spots. Michael was the better of the two Metge brothers finishing the day in 31st. That did bump him down a number of positions in the overall standings, to 36th in fact, but not as much as his brother Adrien who had a miserable day at the office. Adrien ended the day at 77th spot, which has seen him plummet down the overall standings to 33rd.
Hero MotoSports had no casualties to report but their standings too were slightly hampered in the overall stage progression. Since Lorenzo’s crash, Oriol Mena has taken over as the top rider from an Indian team. He was 20th over the course of the day which has seen him slide down a spot in the overall rankings, to 13th. The day started off strongly for his teammate Joaquim Rodrigues but he stopped to help Oriol out as the latter ran his fuel tank dry. He had to rebuild the aux tank and thus finished the day in 30th. He is 25th in the overall tally now. Hero hopes both its riders will challenge for better results in the days to come.
