The first stage of Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge clearly showed that two great rivals \u2013 Rafa\u0142 Sonik and Ignacio Casale \u2013 will be the ones to fight for the first place in the quad category. On Sunday, the Chilean participant had the upper hand, because Rafa\u0142 lost a few valuable minutes on repairing a failure. He also had to pay close attention to fuel levels, because his Honda drank the gas like crazy. <\/p>\n
\u2018The terrain was fantastic, and I\u2019m very happy with my result, because it could\u2019ve been much worse. I was very surprised to see that my quad burned through 20 litres for 100 km. It looks like our gas mix is so rich that while it allows for better cooling, gas consumption is something that I need to be very weary about. I managed to reached the first fuel stop on vapours. Five more kilometres and I would be stuck! Probably one of the participants would\u2019ve helped me, but the time loss would be very severe,\u2019 said Rafa\u0142 Sonik.<\/p>\n
The four-time winner of the World Cup had a small failure of the exhaust, which got screwed off in the first part of the route and Rafa\u0142 Sonik had to spend a few minutes to repair it. \u2018Unfortunately, during this race, the service team is not allowed to help me during the fuel stops. I had to spend a few minutes to repair it, when the clock was already on. But had I not done it, I risked not reaching the finish line at all,\u2019 concluded Sonik.In the end, \u201cSuperSonik\u201d arrived at the finish line five minutes after Ignacio Casale, but as there are four more days ahead of them, he is not worried too much about it. \u2018From what I gather, Ignacio followed Mohammed Al-Balooshi for the majority of the stage. Riding with a biker improves your speed \u2013 in particular if the biker is local. And I navigated and drove alone for 80% of the stage, so the loss of a few minutes at this stage is no loss,\u2019 he ended, on an optimistic note.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday, the participants will again face the dunes, with a 279 km of a special stage ahead of them. <\/p>\n
Results of the first stage:
\n1. Ignacio Casale (CHL) 04:33.48
\n2. Rafa\u0142 Sonik (POL) + 4.54
\n3. Camelia Liparoti (ITA) + 29.28<\/p>\n
General classification:
\n1. Ignacio Casale (CHL) 04:35.51
\n2. Rafa\u0142 Sonik (POL) + 5.58
\n3. Camelia Liparoti (ITA) + 29.45<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The first stage of Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge clearly showed that two great rivals \u2013 Rafa\u0142 Sonik and Ignacio Casale \u2013 will be the ones to fight for the first place in the quad category. On Sunday, the Chilean participant had the upper hand, because Rafa\u0142 lost a few valuable minutes on repairing a failure. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n