Joan Barreda: “The only option was to push”

Dakar 2022 | Stage 2 | AL HENAKIYAH > AL DUWADIMI
January 3 ^rd 2022 - 12:45 [GMT + 3]

Trailing by a good number of minutes following navigation errors yesterday, the most prolific currently active stage victory collector was able to polish up his stats today: it is the 28th time that he has achieved the best time on a Dakar special.

“Today the only option was to push after the big mistake yesterday, but we are only on the second day. For sure, we will have lots of long days with difficult navigation. So, for me today was good to recover a good feeling. Riding on the dunes is always fun, so I tried to enjoy riding all the stage. For sure, it is a lot of time and a big gap, but the most important thing is that we still have ten days in front of us. We will try to push. We have worked a lot during all the year, but now we are here on the Dakar and we are going to try and put all that effort in. Yesterday I had to do the opening but arriving in the area the waypoint was tricky to find. So, I tried to remain really focused and follow the route in the roadbook, but finally we didn’t arrive at the waypoint… So, it’s difficult to interpret sometimes. They say that with the roadbook in Saudi Arabia that it is most important to follow the route, but this time it wasn’t like that. It was difficult because we tried to come back and make the right choice again. But it was like a loop, always making tracks in the same place and we didn’t find the waypoint. Finally, we managed to find it and finish the stage, but it was really hard mentally”.