Esteve Pujol: “We come to win”
Isidre Esteve Pujol had founded many hopes on the 2006 year. He had joined the Gauloises team after leaving KTM Repsol and showed up at the start of the Dakar with high expectations alongside the leader of the team and title-holder Cyril Despres. A fall during the stage between Nouakchott and Kayes saw his Dakar adventure end. Flown away on that day, Isidre was able to compete again two months later and claimed the Tunisia rally.
Since then, he prepared for his tenth appearance in a very serious and meticulous way, also winning the biggest Spanish event of the discipline, the Baja España. A season marked, for Isidre Esteve and all the team, by the unveiling and development of the new KTM 660, the LC4. A team work established with the rival squad of Catalan Marc Coma was set up. “There was no competition problem. We agree with the philosophy of the Dutch brand to associate both teams and build the best possible bike and then let the bikers battle it out on a sporting point of view”, explains Isidre.
Isidre Esteve describes the new wonder as both lighter and less rigid. A machine that seems favourable to be at the height of the team’s ambitions: “We come to win”, he insists. Esteve who quit the race only twice (2003 and 2006) and built himself a reputation of being a very consistent rider (he finished each time in the top 30) on the biggest of rally-raid events is back with a brand new moral and a huge will to make the best of his skills and experience. At 34 years of age he is as ready as can be for the Dakar that he already finished in 4th spot in 2004. ‘’We have never worked so much. There was no rest in our preparation”. The new regulation that no longer limits speed for bikes in desert portions are also there to satisfy the Spaniard. A good way to carry on his personal battle with Marc Coma. And that will certainly make the 2007 bike race even more exciting and still as open.