Michael Docherty may be in a gap points-wise after lacking the final two rounds to damage, however his World Rally-Raid Championship marketing campaign is again on as he prepares to enter the subsequent race in Argentina.
Docherty dislocated his wrist in Stage #3 of the season-opening Dakar Rally, nevertheless it didn’t appear to harm him an excessive amount of on the time as he received three levels afterwards and completed third total in Rally2 behind Romain Dumontier and Paolo Lucci. He scored 4 whole stage wins together with the Prologue, and persistently saved tempo with riders within the prime RallyGP class to the purpose the place he completed second amongst all bikes in Stage #13.
Regardless of the spectacular run, the wrist sidelined him for the Abu Dhabi Desert Problem the next month in addition to the Sonora Rally in April. His absence, coupled with Dumontier skipping Abu Dhabi, allowed Lucci to take the factors lead. After three rounds, Lucci has a three-point edge over Dumontier who dominated Sonora. Jean-Loup Lepan, the very best ending W2RC rider at school at Abu Dhabi, is third and twenty-one factors again however didn’t run the Sonora Rally.
In the meantime, Docherty fell from third within the Rally2 standings after Dakar to sixth and trails Lucci by forty-two. Whereas mathematically not eradicated, he faces a Herculean process if he desires to get again into the championship battle even with Rally2 riders receiving a mulligan within the type of being allowed to drop their worst end result or a skipped race from their remaining whole.
He made his driving return with dune testing in late April.
The following W2RC race, the DesafÃo Ruta 40, runs from 27 August to 1 September.
