Monster Energy Honda HRC riders show grit on challenging first stage

Stage one is done and it wasn’t exactly the result we were hoping for. We started from good positions, but things didn’t go as planned. Ricky struggled a bit in the early mountain section and didn’t feel completely comfortable with the bike, losing some time in the first 30 kilometres. Adrien is still feeling the effects of his crash in Portugal, but he’s doing a solid job and showing great determination despite not being 100%. Skyler had a strong pace but made a navigation mistake that cost him several minutes and also had a small crash, though he’s fine.

Tosha also didn’t feel at his best today and lost a bit of time, but it’s only the first day. Tomorrow, he’ll start further back which could help him find a better rhythm and push to recover some time. It’s still early in the rally and every day will be important from here. The bikes are ready, the team is calm and focused and we’re looking forward to a stronger performance on stage two.

I started out way too calm, no nerves were running, just kinda took it way easy the first nine kilometres and it definitely hurt me. I tried to make up for it and pushed after kilometre 30, but I just was struggling this morning, a little bit sleepy, took off a little bit too calm and just tried to make it through and up and over the mountain on these baseball sized rocks. This is the first time in two years I’ve made it back to the bivouac on stage one, so overall I’m gonna take the small win and just get rid of how the overall results are today. Tomorrow’s another day. I’m happy to be at the bivouac and ready to go for stage two.

I actually enjoyed the stage a lot and I’m happy to be in the desert again. The last few races have been really tight and technical and today we finally got an open stage so I’m really happy about that. My day didn’t go so smooth, I had a crash early on and it twisted up the bike, so I had to fix that and then I made one navigation mistake about halfway through the special. I lost a few minutes today which is a bummer, because I really liked the stage a lot and I had a good ride going. Some areas were definitely tricky and some were really straightforward and super fast, full gas, but then you could really easily get caught out because there were so many tracks to choose from, so you had to be really good with the CAP. Where I made the mistake, we were in a lot of vegetation and then broken track, like in a riverbed and the note was very complicated. But otherwise it was a fun day.

It was an especially tough day for me in my current condition. I knew that before I started to race that I would suffer. I hope that the worst day is over, the terrain was really rough and stony. My mind is probably stronger than my body at the moment, so it’s a difficult balance. I’m proud to be here at the finish of stage one and I’m really glad to have the team, including physios and mechanics behind me.

I had a good position to start between two good riders and I tried to push from the beginning, although I was not so confident today. I think I had a really good rhythm but at the end didn’t get such a good result for the rally. I will try again tomorrow, I think the terrain will be a bit different with more dunes, so I think I have a good position to attack tomorrow from fourth.