Bike & Quad entries decided for Dakar 2017
| The selections in the bike/quad categories have already been made. There is a great list of competitors for the Dakar 2017!
Once again, only riders with sufficient experience have been selected to compete in the Dakar. As of last week, they have become competitors in this legendary race. Some of them will be out for victory, like the factory riders Toby Price, who will try and do the double with the KTM team, together with Matthias Walkner, Sam Sunderland and Antoine Meo. HONDA RACING FACTORY TEAM will also be present again with Joan Barreda, Paolo Gonçalves, Michael Metge and Ricky Brabec. HUSQVARNA FACTORY RACING will be represented by Pablo Quintanilla and Pierre Alexandre Renet. YAMAHA MOTOR EUROPE will fight to win again with its riders from last year, among them Adrien Van Beveren; they will all be keen to show what they learned last January. Finally, SHERCO TVS RALLY FACTORY will be there with more desire than ever with Joan Pedrero and Adrien Metge. The Slovak rider Stefan Svitko will compete for the title again this year, as will Argentina’s Kevin Benavides with HONDA SOUTH AMERICA. There is always room for surprises, however! In the women’s category, Laia Sanz and Rosa Romero will have to take on a new Russian rider this year who wants to knock Laia off her perch. Her name is Anastasiya Nifontova, a name to be followed closely in January. Thanks to their participation in the Afriquia Merzouga Rally in 2016, among other riders, Walter Terblanche from South Africa, Alexandre Giroud (son of the former Dakar competitor Daniel Giroud), or Oscar Romero from Portugal have secured their place for the Dakar 2017. In the “Malle-Moto” class (riders with no technical backup, only their own hands and tools) more than ten competitors have signed up. This will be one of the most international years in this class. Among others, we find Mateo Olivetto (Italy), Lyndon Poskitt and David Watson (UK), Mart Meeru and Toomas Triisa (Estonia), Jasper Riezebos and Jurgen Van den Goorbergh (Netherlands), Lkhamaa Namchin (Mongolia) or Simon Marcic (Slovenia). In Quads we will see Ignacio Casale, Rafal Sonik, Jeremías González Ferioli, Alexis Hernández or Marcelo Medeiros fighting for victory again. Among the amateurs, there is a nice little story around a father and his daughter who will take on the Dakar: Leonardo and Suany Martínez (the first Bolivian woman to compete in the Dakar). The Dakar 2017 promises to be very entertaining in Bikes and Quads, so keep your eyes out on the social networks and the www.dakar.com |
