Ignacio ‘Nacho’» Cornejo: “It was a tough day emotionally”

Dakar 2024 | Stage 11 | ALULA > YANBU
January 18 ^th 2024 - 14:22 [GMT + 3]

A mechanical problem cost the Chilean rider the chance to aim for a podium that had seemed within his grasp. He is more than 24 minutes behind Adrien Van Beveren in 3rd place.

“At the beginning, I always leave some litres of fuel in the back and when I changed tanks, I noticed it wasn’t working but I just kept going with the rear one as much as I could. I stopped and had to try and see what the issue was, I still don’t know. I tried everything and it wasn’t working, so I decided to just take the front tank out and put some fuel in the back. For the second refuelling, it was very tight to do it only with the rear tank, so I had to manage my speed a bit to be sure of finishing. I finished with just the reserve in the tank, so luckily I didn’t have to stop again. I lost some precious minutes in the fight for the podium, so I’m quite sad for that and it was a tough day emotionally, but it’s racing, things like that happen. I just need to keep moving forward. I wanted to be up there as much as I could. I was riding well and navigating well this year, so I’m quite bummed out by what happened today. As I said, it’s racing, you need to know how to deal with these situations too. We’ll try again next year”.