Santosh for Dakar rally with Hero
NEW DELHI: With less than six weeks to go for Dakar Rally 2020, Hero MotoSports Team Rally on Tuesday unveiled its four-rider team for the prestigious event. India’s CS Santosh, Spaniard Oriol Mena, Joaquim Rodrigues of Portugal and new signing Paulo Goncalves, also Portuguese, will lead the team’s challenge in Saudi Arabia, which is hosting the world’s most prominent rally for the first time.
Making the announcement at Hero’s headquarters in New Delhi, team manager Wolfgang Fischer said preparations for the rally are on track. This is the first time since 2007 that the rally is being held outside of South America, which had become Dakar’s temporary home since trouble erupted in the original route.
“It will be a new challenge for everyone,” said Fischer. “We have had a good year so far and we want to close it on a high with a strong performance at the Dakar 2020.”
For Santosh, this will be the sixth Dakar Rally of his career. He has completed the rally on three of the five occasions he has taken part in, although he won’t have fond memories from last year after a crash saw his campaign come to a premature end. Saying he wants to figure among the best riders in the world at Dakar, Santosh said the Saudi Arabia route should have a few similarities to other desert routes. “When you are in the desert, there are a few constants that you can always rely on. There are going to be tracks that are fast, some that have rocks, places that have dunes or dry river beds. All these things are constant across deserts. Now the race is really long; this year is one of the longest races that in Dakar. For this, it’s a huge unknown for us,” he said.
Santosh will be high in confidence after finishing fifth at the Pan Africa Rally in September. That rally was won by his teammate Rodrigues, who will be eyeing bigger prizes at Dakar. Mena, who finished ninth overall last year, and the highly-experienced Goncalves, secondplace finisher in 2015, complete a formidable team in Hero’s fourth year in the rally.