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 | SA-Dakar Rally: Aprilia decided to continue rally with French Alain Duclos only.
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Team Giofil Aprilia Racing has decided to continue the Dakar with its only remaining rider. Alain Duclos will continue with his Aprilia RXV 4.5 in the race. The menu of the day included the longest stage, highly demanding at a physical level.
Alain Duclos, the only Aprilia rider still in the race after the retirement of Francisco López , took back the race today. The French-Malian rider arrived late to the bivouac after finding serial problems in stage 7. Fuel tank, fairing and saddle were part of it, and made him leave from the special stage after 2 a.m.
This morning he started from Copiapo in the 22nd place due to his possibility given to "elite" riders to change their starting place. But in this very hard day, mainly off road, Duclos felt the tiredness from the first half of the Dakar and for this reason did not pushed too hard and took the 20th position, half an hour behind the stage winner, Marc Coma.
"I felt tiredness arrive after seven sages, and plus the road connection today at the beginning" Duclos said after the stage. "I almost fell asleep. Monday´s stage was hard, mostly by the off road and the stones. For that, I did not feel like forcing too much, because also my main goal is to arrive to Lima."
As overall standings are no longer an issue, Alain and Giofil Aprilia Racing will continue the race to test new technical solutions and acquire important information concerning the bike behavior in extreme conditions.
2012/01/09 | 22:45 CET | ARTICLE: MR/SY/BAUER
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