Joan Barreda extended his leadership of the OiLibya Rally of Morocco yet further after an impressive sand and navigation-filled second stage victory. The win was all the more remarkable for having set off at the head of the field. The Spaniard remained unreachable out front. In doing so, Barreda widens the deficit over second place Marc Coma by two minutes. The damage could have been much worse, were it not for a slight navigation slip-up which set the leader back several minutes.
Second place on the day went to fellow Team HRC rider Jeremías Israel. The Chilean had been penalized on Stage 1 for missing the final checkpoint, but performed well over the first part of the race, only to be slowed up later by dust created by the riders ahead.
The two Portuguese riders Helder Rodrigues and Paulo Goncalves had a good day at the office, finishing in fifth and sixth. Rodrigues went in pursuit of those up ahead and was able to maintain a rapid pace throughout. The reigning world champion at one point was forced to stop to fix a vibrating front fairing.
Last but not least, a great result for Laia Sanz, once again finishing amongst the world’s top riders in thirteenth place, in spite of a minor crash without consequences.
Joan Barreda: I’m really happy. We did a lot of preparation for this stage yesterday. We knew that there was going to be a lot of navigation. It was an incredible pace, I navigated without mistakes, impeccable, until kilometre 160. We really pushed, opening the way in the dunes. In the end I made a slight error thinking that we could get back on the track further on, but I was able to rectify it without losing too much time. But that’s the way it is; if you push that hard you can expect some navigational errors.
