Here’s the full interview:

Sirish Chandran: How was your preparation like for the Dakar 2021?

Ashish Raorane: I would have meant to prepare a lot more and have a lot more time with the motorcycle but this year has been crazy. The first six months I spent on the ship because I couldn't get back. There were no flight options. I returned in August, then I started exploring some options to get to Europe because I got the bike in Spain and that was done in May, hoping I would get back on the bike in a month or so. But that didn't work out. Eventually, when I got back in August, I started checking and there were no embassies open and after a lot of communications with the French Embassy and ASO, on 30th October I was handed a travel permit. The first week of November, I was in Spain and I trained for about two weeks on the bike. That was the first time I was riding a Rally Replica, so far I have only competed on my Enduro bike. Then we had room to rush to get the bike ready and I had two days left to get to France on December 1 to drop the bike in Marseille. I could only make it on December 3 which was the last day of dropping the bikes. We pretty much spent November 30, December 1 and 2 working late night in the workshop, getting the bike prepared. Because I was delayed, I missed the truck that was gonna take my bike to Marseille. So I had to drive 700km back to France and then I drove back again to Spain. So the adventure began quite a long time ago for me

SC: Who all are the guys who are supporting you in Europe?

A: I have Bigbadbikes supporting me. They have been with me for a very long time. Then we have got Leatt and Garene. Dosmoto design has been doing all the groundwork for me as well. Slipstreamperformance takes care of motorcycles in India.

SC: In Europe do you have any on-ground support, in terms of technical and training?

A: I am training with Jordi Grau, who is also part of Hero MotoSports. He runs the Big Rock team, so Santosh was there as well. We were kind of training together. I was using his workshop. Jordi is very experienced when it comes to Dakar. He is himself a mechanic. So he helped me build the bike and also train on working on the bike. Also, being an engineer myself it helps. It is easier to understand things and work on machines.

SC: What does Jordi think of you attempting the Malle Moto class?

A: He thinks it's quite a good way to go. Also, in terms of budgets and hiring a service team at a cost, I think for a privateer it's also a good way to go. If you manage the race properly, it's not all that hard. But of course if something goes wrong then it can be tough for anyone, even the ones who have the best service support

SC: For the Malle Moto class, I suspect your fitness levels have to be even better than the guys who were doing it with factory support? What have you been doing for your fitness and getting ready physically?

A: Whenever I am on the ship, I obviously don't have access to motorcycles and that’s when I spend most of my time completing my fitness training. I have been working towards it for a few years now. We always focus on stability, endurance and strength. So these are the three aspects we split into the week. On the weekends we do like 100km of cycling or three hours of cardio and then some stability training that I do pretty much everyday. When I was in Spain, Santosh and I were training on endurance trying to keep the heart rate really high for an hour. So we were training for hours on the motocross tracks.

SC: Training with Santosh, where do you reckon your paces with regards to him?

A: I have a long way to go before I catch up with him. We are both evolving in rallies. If I compare myself now to what Santosh did last year, it's different from where I am today and where Santosh is today because he is also constantly evolving. There is still a big gap, I need to catch up and also I think apart from that it is the way we approach the race. Because Santosh, in the end, is a factory rider and he is able to take different risks. I can't afford that, especially in the Malle Moto class. For me it’s more of managing the race and not taking big risks.

SC: In terms of events that you've done leading up to this, what were the highlights?

A: The Baja Championship last year was very good for me in terms of getting comfortable with the race environment because that was four rounds in different countries and each race was very different. And definitely the Africa Eco Race that I did in January 2020 opened my eyes to marathon rally kind of throws at you. For the Dakar, I am hoping it's not gonna be like a punch on the face even though it's my first Dakar, I know what to expect and what level it's gonna be in terms of handling the time and handling the race by itself. That was a good decision to do the Africa Eco Race. It also gives an insight on where I need to improve to get to the Dakar this year.

SC: On a level of one to ten, where are you in terms of your prep?

A: I would say 8.

SC: Which is not bad!

A: Which is not bad, yeah. I wouldn't say it's bad but there is always scope for improvement and if I had a month more, I would have been able to achieve more. But in the end, I think, I am satisfied with what I have done, given the circumstances and that is why I am in a good mental state going into the race. Given everything that has happened through the year and the challenges and all the restrictions with travel, just to be here now, I am knowing what I have been able to achieve in terms of prep and I am going in with a good mindset that way.