Rodrigues, Santosh finish Dakar Rally in Hero's rookie season

Joaquim Rodrigues and India's C S Santosh, riding for debutants Hero MotoSports Team Rally, finished the gruelling Dakar Rally in 10th and 47th spot respectively.
The rally concluded here after completing the 9,000-km run across Paraguay, Bolivia and Argentina.
It was the third straight appearance for Santosh at the world's toughest off-road rally. He had to retire last year and finished 36th in his first attempt in 2015.
It was a good result for the Hero squad which was set up in April 2016 in strategic partnership with German off-road motorcycle specialist, Speedbrain GmbH.
Rodrigues, not only finished the rally, he exceeded the team's expectations with the top-10 finish.

In the morning, both the riders finished the 64-km 12th special stage of the 2017 edition.

Rodrigues completed his timed run in 33 minutes 57 seconds that put him in 15th place in the stage ranking, while Santosh covered the distance in 40 minutes 39 seconds that put him 45th place for the day. After 12 stages Rodrigues clocked 34 hours 25minutes 59 seconds, while Santosh finished all the timed sections in 42 hours 01 minute 16 seconds.
Commenting on the team's performance, Hero MotoCorp chairman Pawan Munjal said: "We had full faith in our riders C.S. Santosh and Joaquim Rodrigues and they demonstrated excellent skill, endurance and temperament with their superlative performance".

Santosh said he wanted to finished higher up than what he eventually managed.
"It's always a pleasure to finish Dakar. It's an incredible feeling. I am satisfied with my performance, though I would have loved to finish much higher up in the rankings. But this is the Dakar. There were some good days and some not so good days. I have learnt a lot working with this team and they delivered a very strong and a fast bike. I think we have some interesting days ahead of us. I once again thank the team for lending its full support," he said.

The other India in the rally, Aravind K P, retired earlier in the competition after crashing at the start of Stage 3.