Stunning 3rd for Harith Noah in SS2 at FIM Baja Aragon
Teruel (Spain), 24 July 2022: Sherco TVS Factory Racing rider Harith Noah recorded a stunning top-3 in one of the stages in a field of 163 riders and successfully completed the cross-country rally in Overall fifth place, in Baja Spain Aragon, the fourth round of the FIM Bajas World Cup that concluded here on Sunday. In the FIM 450cc class for bikes, Noah was placed fourth.
Achieving a career-best third in SS2 in the FIM Bajas World Cup round, the rider from Kerala, put in excellent performance and missed the podium by a few minutes as he finished 5th overall. Astride a Sherco 450, the 29-year TVS Racing talent is taking part in the prestigious annual event that is now a round of both the FIA and FIM Bajas World Cup. Beginning the 6-km prologue cautiously trailing in 16th, Harith Noah switched up pace and moved up 13 places with a stunning ride in SS2 that launched him to P3. However, tough and dangerous terrain curtailed his further dash to the front as he had to be content with an 8th place in SS1 (02:45:56.0). “The track was a bit dangerous as the cars had passed already and that made many rocks pop out on to the track. Focus was to complete the stage safely,” said Noah, who attacked once again on the last Sector for which he preserved his best. Clocking 2:07:26.0 on the last day, he sealed the fourth place in the stage for an overall fifth.
He finished the last day’s ‘competitive special’ of 159 km between Banon and Teruel and moved up to a brilliantly in the Overall classification in Group 1 (Category 1) of the FIM Bajas World Cup for 450cc bikes. He clocked a total time of 8hours, 07minutes and 33.0seconds. With his Sherco teammates Lorenzao Santolino and Rui Goncalves finishing second and third, Noah made it three bikes in top-5 for the Sherco-TVS combo that missed the top-spot by just about 5 minutes.
Performing consistently on all three days, Harith Noah dished out high-standard riding to shoot into top-3 on Saturday, the Day 2. “For the first time I am back on the rally bike after the last Dakar. I felt so good to be back riding at an international event. The hard-pack tracks made it fun to slide around and I enjoyed it. It was a great experience and like always, I have learned a lot and hope to fine tune my skills from this rich experience,” said the Shoranur star. “It was a great feeling to be able to finish one of the stages with the front pack and the bike proved to be good,” the 29-year star told INDIAinF1 from Spain.
The gruelling race that traversed over 400 km in the Selective Sector on Saturday morning with another 200 plus km in the evening presented a technically tough route but Harith Noah who thrives on routes that offer difficult navigational challenges, took to his liking and posted a stunning 5:50:09.0.
The Kerala rider is the fastest Indian at the Dakar as he beat CS Santolsh’s record and joined KP Aravind, in the elite club of three from India, that finished Dakar successfully. Harith Noah will be back to his training for the 2023 Dakar next January.
