The eighth special of the Rally Dos Sertoes was the umpteenth repetition of the very same problem that the KTM riders have experienced since the first day of the rally. On a special with two differentiated parts – the first slow and technical, and then much faster – Marc Coma had the same tyre problems that he has had since he arrived in Brazil. As soon as the Repsol rider reached a fast zone, with speeds over 150km/h, his tires had worn out.
The Repsol KTM rider was first until the first refuelling, but from then on he found it impossible to overtake the rider on the motorbike ahead of him, ridden by Ze Helium, because of the dust he kicked up. What is more twenty kilometres from the end he had some problems with the rear tyre again. Luckily the track was sandy and this problem did not get any worse, but all the time he had made up was lost, and in the end he was second behind Cyril Despres.His teammate, Jordi Viladoms, once again finished among the fastest in this raid, in spite of being ruled out of the fight for victory after he had engine problems on the marathon stage. The Repsol rider crossed the technical zone without any problems, but once he reached the fast zone he preferred not to use the accelerator too much in case he had to help to his teammate, Marc Coma, by giving up his motorbike. In the end this was not necessary and he crossed the finishing line without any big setbacks.Marc ComaToday`s special had two very well defined parts. The first was very technical and there I was able to recover a lot of time on the riders ahead of me in the overall classification. But the second part was very fast, and when I reached Helium, the dust slowed me down, so I think that the time that I made up on the first part there was lost in the second half. What is more, on the fast part of the special I began to have the same tyre problems at the rear again, and that made me slow down because a situation like this makes you feel very insecure. We have to work hard to solve the problems we are having with the rear tyre, because right now we cannot see what the bike can really do on the fast sections. Jordi ViladomsToday`s special was not very complicated. The zone was something like Mauritania, very barren and with a little dry vegetation. At the beginning we had a slow twisty track, with a lot of trial bikes. it was more like an a stage in an enduro race, until we reached the re-fuelling. From then on the special became really fast. Seeing what was going on I preferred to take things easy since I knew that I would be left without one of the tyres and I was taking risks, and would not be able to finish. What is more, if it had been necessary, I might have had to pass my bike on to Marc [Comma].
