Laia Sanz completed the eleventh special in 39th position, another great result for her, who continues her progression in the general classification and is already in 40th place, just one place away from equalling the result of the previous edition.
The Dakar is a continuous challenge and for Laia it could not be less. The Gas Gas rider faced the marathon stage today, the first of its kind since 2007. In practice, this means that the women’s Dakar champion could not receive the assistance of the team’s mechanic, like the other motorcycle riders, but she has also not been able to count on her teammate Marc Guasch, who is still hospitalized in Chile and is progressing favourably. Laia had to manage to check the bike on her own and bivouac to face tomorrow’s twelfth stage of the rally.
For this reason, the Spaniard has maintained the precautions of the last few days, but without ceasing to take advantage of any moment to overtake positions: “Today’s stage was to break the bikes. We had to ford two rivers where the water was up to your waist and in one of them the current even carried you away. In the first wade there were a lot of riders with problems to cross, because it was easy to get off balance and for the bike to fall. Many have had water get into the filter and it has been very difficult to restart, so I have looked for another step further away by trying a little and it has worked out well. Then we found an area of about 40 kilometres with fesh fesh that was very hard, both for the riders and for the bikes. That’s where I ended up devastated. I thought I was the only one who was like that, but when I reached the finish line everyone was commenting on how exhausted they had finished. In the final part there were very fast stages, but I took it easy.”
Source: Gas Gas
