Loprais stays third despite three punctures

Already the first two stages of Morocco Desert Challenge have shown how difficult the whole event is. But AlesLoprais is doing well so far and is currently third in the truck category. Not even three different punctures throughout the stage two have managed to stop him.

In the prologue, Ales Loprais managed to finish second, less than a minute behind Van Kasteren with Renault. Those 70 kilometres were just a taste of what followed on Monday. The opening stage was almost 500 kilometres long and took almost six hours.

"It was a really difficult stage. We had got into the lead at the beginning, but then we made a mistake in navigation and lost about five places. Unfortunately, we got behind one of the MAN trucks and we couldn't lose it for another 200 kilometres. I haven't seen that for a while! Then in the neutralization zone, we changed two of our tyres, which were in quite a bad shape," said Ales in a bivouac. He finished the stage despite a puncture on his right rear tyres.

Ales Loprais, Ferran Marco Alcayna and Petr Pokora are currently third in the standings in the truck category, about 18 minutes behind the leading Martin Van den Brink.