IN
THE
WIND
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GONCALVES, HONDA WIN IN ABU DHABI
T
eam HRC's Paulo Gonçalves
won the final stage of the
Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge
last week and in the process
won the overall, beating Red
Bull KTM's Marc Coma by just
20 seconds after five stages of
the opening round of the Rally
Raid World Championship.
Gonçalves was near per-
fect in the final stage, catching
Coma and his Goncalves' team-
mate Joan Barreda at the sec-
ond checkpoint and then taking
control of the race. At the finish
he'd opened up a big enough
gap to take the overall victory.
Barreda finished the stage
in third, consolidating his third
place in the overall standings
behind his teammate and Coma.
For both defending World
Champion Gonçalves and Hon-
da this was the first win in the
Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge.
"So this Abu Dhabi rally is
finished, and I'm really happy
for me, and all the team," Gon-
calves said. "We have fought a
lot during these five days, but
we have shown that we have a
strong team, a really competitive
bike, some really fast riders, and
we managed to pick up a vic-
tory. So we should be pleased
and confident about our future.
Our bike is working really well
in these hard conditions here
in the Abu Dhabi desert, so we
need to be happy. Congratula-
tions to everybody."
Coma was disappointed with
narrowly missing out on vic-
tory, the Spaniard suffering with
the loss of his teammate Sam
Sunderland after the Brit got
knocked out of the race in the
fourth stage by a mechanical
problem.
Paulo Goncalves gave Honda victory in the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge
that concluded last week.
Quote OF THE WEEK
"
I cannot explain why already I win my six
races here in this place [U.S.] - Moto2 and
MotoGP. I don't know why is a great country for
me. I like it. So I will ask to Carmelo [Ezpeleta –
the boss of Dorna] to have more races here.
"
-Marc Marquez after winning his fourth U.S. round of the
MotoGP World Championship in a row on Sunday.
PHOTOGRAPHY
BY
GOLD
&
GOOSE
