Quintanilla bounces back for the stage five victory as Van Beveren joins him on the podium

It was a great win by Pablo today and he recovered some time in the overall standings, as did Adrien with his second place.  Nacho had a difficult day because he opened the stage, but he did a good job because when it’s 100% dunes it’s difficult to have the same pace as the riders starting behind who have the tracks to follow.  He lost a bit of time to now be second overall, just in front of Ricky who is also in a good position to fight tomorrow.  

We will start this 48 Hour Chrono well placed and our goal is to arrive in Riyadh for the rest day with the five riders in a strong position to start the second week of the rally.

After two awful days everything fell into place. I went flat out but it wasn't easy because the glare of the sun made it hard to see the tracks.  It was tough but I managed to set a fast pace and had a great stage. I wasn't expecting this type of soft sand because I heard it had rained in the last few days, but I had fun anyway on my bike.  I’m happy to be in this position ahead of the 48 Hour Chrono, it'll help me and perhaps unlock some opportunities.

It definitely wasn’t that easy today, we woke up at 3.30am and we had a big stretch of highway to ride before we got to play in the sand, so it was pretty tiring just doing that.  We had a short special which felt like a kind of prologue for the chrono stage.  I started second today which wasn’t ideal as we’d started upfront yesterday too so typically I knew we would lose time. But overall it was good, I caught Nacho around the 50 km mark and then from there to the finish we both made a big push going as fast as we could. 

Today was only a short stage but it was a very tiring day because of the liaison distance.  It was an early morning and then a very hot day in the dunes as well, so it took me a little while to find the flow this morning.  About half way through the stage I started to catch the guys in front of me which gave me a little bit more motivation and I gained more confidence in the bike.  I’m feeling better and today was a positive day as I made no navigation mistakes, so I think we’re in a decent position for the chrono stage starting tomorrow.

I was pushing as hard as I could today and opening in the dunes was tough. I tried to do a good job and it was good to be able to ride with Ricky in the dunes when he caught up.

Yesterday I decided to attack all day which did give me the stage win, but then having to lead the way today did make it a bit tricky.  There’s a harder stage to come now so I will just keep focused on this.

It really was a sprint today and when I caught up with Ross (Branch) I seemed to lose a bit of rhythm.  But I feel really good and I love dunes. I worked a lot with Honda to make this bike perform well in these conditions so I will be prepared for this epic 48 Hour Chrono.