Making good use of his advantageous starting position, Pablo Quintanilla has powered to a strong third place result on stage two of the 2018 Morocco Rally. Putting in a solid performance today in the dunes of eastern Morocco, the Rockstar Energy Husqvarna Factory Racing rider is now looking to keep up his momentum as he heads into the final three stages of the rally.
Returning stronger after a challenging opening stage, Quintanilla enjoyed a mistake-free stage two at the Morocco Rally. With Saturday’s timed special featuring tricky navigation, the Chilean rally star tackled everything that was thrown at him to climb back inside the top-10 in the rally’s provisional overall standings. Pablo is currently sixth overall.
Enjoying a great first half of the timed special, Andrew Short lost time following a navigational mistake 40km before the finish. Posting the 10th fastest time for the day, the American will look for better individual stage results during the next three days of racing in Africa.
Sunday’s stage three will once again start and finish at the Erfoud bivouac. The total distance to be covered is 280km with 275km of special stage.
Pablo Quintanilla: “The special stage today had really tricky navigation but I pushed hard to make up some of the time I lost yesterday. Today there were many off-piste sections and again at some parts it was difficult to locate the correct routes. Overall, I am happy with how I did today. My pace was good, I passed a lot of riders and ended up finishing the stage with the third best time for the day. It felt good to be back at my normal race pace. We got one more tricky stage out of the way and now I’m focused on the last three stages of this rally.”
Andrew Short: “The stage today was more like world rally style. It was fast and there were many car tracks. That might not be my specialty but overall I felt I did a good job today. I had a really competitive pace until about kilometre 240 and then I got lost. I couldn’t find the right tracks and ended up losing more time. Fortunately, now I have the experience to find my way out of such difficult situations, so I spotted a truck from the distance and rode to it. Last year I would have never even thought of that so I am happy there’s some improvement there. Hopefully I will be able to show more of my speed in the coming stages and I’m really looking forward to this last part of the race.”
You may find high-res images from the Morocco Rally here.
2018 Morocco Rally – Stage 2 Provisional Classification
1. Matthias Walkner (KTM) 03:26:48
2. Toby Price (KTM) 03:29:34
3. Pablo Quintanilla (Husqvarna) 03:30:59
4. Ricky Brabec (Honda) 03:31:08
5. Franco Caimi (Yamaha) 03:31:14
6. Paulo Goncalves (Honda) 03:33:51
…
10. Andrew Short (Husqvarna) 03:48:01
2018 Morocco Rally – Provisional Overall Classification [After Stage 2]
1. Toby Price (KTM) 05:51:39
2. Matthias Walkner (KTM) 05:51:51
3. Ricky Brabec (Honda) 06:03:32
4. Paulo Goncalves (Honda) 06:05:04
5. Franco Caimi (Yamaha) 06:12:59
6. Pablo Quintanilla (Husqvarna) 06:15:10
…
11. Andrew Short (Husqvarna) 06:32:26
