The first stage between San Teodoro and Arbatax of 326 kilometers consisted of two Specials of which 47 kilometers from the first and 75 kilometers from the second were completely new to the Sardegna Rally Race. This first stage has allowed the riders to get into race mode while crossing and surrounding various mountains of the littoral of the Olastra coast on the east side of the island.
This first stage was not a very complicated one in terms of navigation; the tracks were defined, wide, rather hard and a bit dusty. Due to this, Joan Barreda, the fastest man during yesterday’s prologue, decided to start from fourth position in order to avoid visual inconvenient that could end up affecting his riding. Unfortunately the pace that he maintained was not enough for him to win this stage. He has given away a few minutes and is currently on eighth place in the general standing.
Paulo Gonçalves started behind his HRC teammate and managed to get to him with a very good pace, setting the third best time during the first Special and ending up fifth at the end of the day. It is a good position to be in order to battle on the following stage of 170 kilometers that will take place tomorrow.
For Hélder Rodrigues it has also been a good day, finishing in the Top10 and only three minutes behind the leader of the race.
Paulo Gonçalves: The Special today was good. I started in fifth position and in the second Special I ended up opening the track. It went pretty well: I was fifth at only over one minute from the first guy. I lost some time because I found a closed door and I had to get off the bike to open it and the other riders cached up with me. In the end, I think that it went pretty well. I am satisfied so far because I know that we have a lot more days ahead of us.
