Silk Way Rally Day 2: Paulo Gonclaves and Oriol Mena score their debut podium finish
Hero MotoSports Team Rally riders consolidated their good performance of stage one with a fantastic show in stage two of the Silk Way Rally, breaching the top five rankings.
Oriol Mena stormed ahead with extraordinary pace to catch several riders ahead of him and finished in the second place, pushing him to climb up to the sixth position in the overall rankings. His team-mate Paulo Goncalves too, had a superb day and conquered the third-place finish in stage two. After his victory he moved up to the third place in the overall rankings, breaking into the top three, early in the rally. The first spot was occupied by Redbull KTM rider Sam Sunderland
Stage two was the first in the series of long stages of the Silk Way Rally covering 411.5km including a special stage of 212km from Baykalsk to Ulan-ude. This stage consisted of a diverse set of landscapes, starting with a stony broken road section filled with water holes, leading up to the special section passing through the forest, river bridges, and Siberian hills ending in a fast dash to the finish line across steppe plateaus.
After the stage Oriol Mena said “I rode really well today and am quite happy with the results. It was a fast stage today with muddy holes to start with. I rode carefully in this section to avoid any crashes. After about a 100kms the terrain changed into a fast piste and hard ground. Finally after 150 kms of eating a lot of dust at the back of the lead pack, I pushed hard and managed to overtake the rider in front of me. I am feeling good on the bike and quite confident, so happy to see the back of one more day.”
The overall rankings after stage two
1.Kevin Benavides, Monster Energy Honda- 02:52:28
2. Sam Sunderland, Red Bull KTM- 02:52:36
3. Paulo Goncalves, Hero MotoSports- 02:53:55
4. Luciano Benavides, Redbull KTM- 02:55:30
5. Joan Barreda, Monster Energy Honda- 02:58:59
6.Oriol Mena, Hero MotoSports-03:01:02
