Sam Sunderland: "I had to calm down a little bit"

Dakar 2023 | Prologue | ALULA > ALULA
December 31 ^st 2022 - 11:57 [GMT + 3]

The defending champion, tenth in the prologue, remains upbeat despite his uninspired performance on New Year's Eve.

"It was okay. I didn't feel super comfortable, to be honest. I had a couple of quite sketchy moments and had to calm down a little bit. It's always a bit exciting, you get to the Dakar with number 1 on the bike, and it's the prologue, and everything's a bit hyped up... I had to calm myself down a little bit. We've got 14 days of chaos, so these 11 km, I'm sure, aren't going to change that much."