Paulo Gonçalves makes it to the halfway stage as leader of the Rally Dakar 2016

Today I found Walkner who had fallen so I stopped; it was a normal situation for the Dakar: you give help when it’s needed. I stayed with him until they were able to come to his rescue and then I carried on very carefully. This week has been very fast and I have had some problems with the altitude. The first week has been really fast with difficulties at altitude. Now we are back in Argentina again with riding that we are more accustomed to. The position that I took was a good one and we have to continue to push until the end.

I started out from behind and I was struggling in the dust cloud that the other riders ahead had raised, but at a good pace, where I felt very comfortable in the first, more technical part. In the second part the storm was enormous and the river was flowing really heavily. It stopped my engine but I was able to get it out and get it started again. There was a bit of navigation and I enjoyed myself. I think that I did a good stage.

The first stage was good I came across some riders helping out Walkner who had crashed and broken his leg. When I see that stuff I take it easy because I don’t want that to happen to me. Other than that the stage was very good and fast. It was the same stage as two days ago so we remembered a lot of the stuff. The second stage getting cancelled was a disappointment. It was raining quite hard on us but it was still fun.

Today, of course, went better than yesterday. It was really hard but I’m happy with the work that I have done. It was very difficult. Luckily I was able to make it back to the bivouac and was able to start up again today. I started from a long way back and there was a lot of dust. I pasted 60 riders and that was complicated but I’m pleased because I finished in 30th place. I’ve got to take it easy and ride and intelligent race to get up with Paulo.

Today was a good stage; I felt very good on the bike – very comfortable. I’m happy to be back home again in Salta and receive such a great welcome on my birthday. I couldn’t ask for anything more. I just want to say a really big thanks to everyone who has been supporting me.

To start the first week with a positive result in this Dakar has made us really happy and we have now arrived at the first rest-day here in Salta with the overall lead of Paulo Goncalves which he has held for a few days. There are no serious injuries first of all, of course our big setback was yesterday with Joan Barreda dropping out of the race with bike problems. He couldn’t rejoin the race today. Now we are going to get our strength back and start preparing man and machine. Then we will start pressuring in the second week that promises to be harder than the first one. We will try and stay focused on that and be ready to attack and defend our lead. All team, the riders between each other and all staff have been working very well together to arrive in this position in Salta. Thanks to all.