Ross Branch had a particularly challenging ninth stage of the 2024 Dakar. Despite being the fifth fastest, the Hero MotoSports rider lost a lot of time and is now 7m09s behind the leader of the classification, Ricky Brabec (Monster Energy Honda).
The Botswana rider, second in the classification, admitted to the official Dakar website that he made mistakes, but tried to minimize the losses: ‘Today I lost a lot of time, but it was complicated for me. I couldn’t get started, I couldn’t find a flow. I made a couple of stupid navigation mistakes, but it’s the first bad day of the rally for me, so we’ll accept it. At least I don’t open tomorrow, so maybe we can attack again tomorrow. We’ll see how it goes. You have these bad days. I tried to manage and tried to lose as little time as possible, and we’ll have to see tonight if anything changes‘.
The end of the Dakar is approaching and Branch didn’t hide the pressure he’s feeling: ‘The pressure is affecting everyone now. It’s the decisive moment and I would have liked us to be a little closer today. But it’s competition, you can’t have a perfect day every day, you make some mistakes and you just have to try to manage. I just tried to keep a cool head for the rest of the afternoon. I had a few moments, so I’m glad to have completed another day of the Dakar and we’ll focus on tomorrow‘.
