Paulo Gonçalves consolidates his third place in the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge

"I’m happy with the third place. My CRF 450 RALLY worked really well in these hard conditions here in the Abu Dhabi desert. We’ve got three days ahead here and I’ll try to get ahead and catch up to the first position. It won’t be easy, but we have the right team and bike to be in the running for it. Tomorrow we will see."

"Today was another hard day. We started in fourth position and we saw that the front rider was really fast and we tried to keep up pace throughout. We managed to keep up more or less the same speed but I had to stop to fix one part of the bike and we dropped a few minutes, but we were able to make up the time again and keep up the speed. In the end we had a good stage and we’ll keep on trying to get better results."

"Another day over in Abu Dhabi. Today I held back. I tried to get more speed but it’s not so easy when you start from last place in the race. It’s difficult to pick up the pace of the first guys. I tried to finish the day so as to be able to start among the top riders tomorrow."

"Another hard day here in Abu Dhabi. We can see that our riders are really strong. Today was really tough for them and quite dangerous. They finished the race in a bunch with Paulo in third, a good position for tomorrow’s attack. The bike’s are holding up well and I’m very happy that they’ve all managed to finish this race, because it’s very dangerous here in Abu Dhabi."

"Another good day for the team. Paulo was able to stay close to the top riders Sam and Coma. Joan had a few minutes delay for a quick repair but nothing dramatic. Both riders used their heads and didn’t take too many risks because there are some really big jumps over the dunes and one small mistake could cause a crash or a lot of damage. Helder had a bit of a delay but caught up well. In the end all three guys are here and there are three big days to go. So let’s see what happens tomorrow."