Ross Branch had a particularly challenging ninth stage of Dakar 2024 this Tuesday. Despite being the fifth fastest, the Hero MotoSports rider lost a lot of time and is now 7 minutes and 9 seconds behind the leader in the standings, Ricky Brabec (Monster Energy Honda).
The Botswana rider, second in the standings, admitted to the Dakar’s official website that he made mistakes, trying to then minimize the losses: ‘Today, I lost a lot of time, but it was tough for me, I couldn’t get going, I couldn’t find a flow. I made a couple of stupid navigation mistakes, but that’s the first bad day of the rally for me, so we’ll take it. At least I’m not opening tomorrow, so maybe we can push again tomorrow. We’ll see how it goes. You have those bad days.I tried to manage it and tried to lose the least time possible and we’ll have to see tonight if anything changes’.
The end of the Dakar is approaching, and Branch didn’t hide that the pressure is being felt: ‘The pressure is kicking in now for everybody. It’s crunch time and I would have liked to have been up there a little bit closer today, but that’s racing. You can’t have a perfect day every day. You make some mistakes and you just have to try and manage it. I’ve just been trying to keep a cool head for the rest of the afternoon. I had a few moments, so I’m just happy to tick another day off on the Dakar and let’s focus on tomorrow’.