Tuesday 31 March
Second Special: Qasr Al Sarab - Qasr Al Sarab
Link Section: 90 km – Special: 272 km – Link Section: 40 km – Total: 402 km
At 6 am this morning, a light mist floated over the bivouac at Qasr Al Sarab as the first motorcyclists struck out for a 90 km link section begfore attacking the third leg with its 272 km of sand.
It was a safe enough bet that Paolo Goncalves (Honda), who had left in twelfth position, would win the Special. This evening, he will be able to choose his place (new FIM Rule applicable to the top 3 who can reassign themselves a place within the first 6). Marc Coma (KTM), who left in 11th place, came in 29 seconds behind the man from Portugal, moving to the top of the leader board.
For his first race in the FIM Cross Country Rallies World Championship, Pablo Quintanilla (KTM) made his mark with a fine 3rd place at the finish: "Today, I managed to read the terrain and the dunes a bit better. It was a really good day for me", he said.
Barreda (Honda) found the Special hard going, coming in 4th ahead of Sunderland (KTM). "After 50 km", he said, "I caught up with Balooshi, who set out first, and rode out ahead up to the refuelling. On this race, there is no navigation, and it's easy to get a good place if you have a good place at the start!"
Ruben Faria (KTM) finished in 6th: "I soon caught up with Balooshi and rode on ahead until I was joined by Barreda and Sam."
The new Honda rookie Ricky Brabec put in a fine performance with a seventh place ahead of Balooshi, Cornejo of Chile, and Salvatierra.
The young Austrian Matthias Walker (KTM) came back in the pick-up. « At km 25, my bike started to have outages and stopped altogether 10 km later on. It was an electrical problem", he said.
In quad, Sonik signed a fine Special, coming in first in his category, in 13th, ahead of Abu Isa and Sanabra. Kees Koolen had a problem at km 45 and had to come back to bivouac in the pick-up.