The country’s rally-raid pioneer at the international level, CS Santosh, returned to India with a handful of positive takeaways after finishing in an impressive 16th place in the Merzouga Rally in Morocco, which forms part of the Dakar Series. Encouraged by the result in Morocco, the Indian rally-raid rider will be spending the next three months in Europe to train for the next edition of the Dakar Rally in 2017.
Looking forward, the Bangalore-based rider said that he will be spending the next three months, starting June, in Europe training with the rally bike and polishing his navigation skills. Santosh could have finished further up the final classification had he not made navigation errors on a couple of stages in Morocco. He will work out of his base in Spain, which is the home to some of top riders in the world, but will travel to other parts of Europe to train and compete.
Santosh and Hero Motocorp Team Rally will be taking part in the OiLibya Rally in Morocco in October, which is part of the FIM World Cross-Country Rally Championship, before heading to South America for the 2017 Dakar Rally.
