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These first days of the Dakar 2024 are putting to the test the competitors of the 46th edition of the famous marathon in the desert. They were busy today with a 438 km Special from Al Duwadimi to Al Salamiy among dunes, stones, and vast stretches of sand. A challenging route, made even more so by the fact that the mechanics were given only two hours to work on the bikes at the end of the stage, before resting at the bivouac in view of the 631 km scheduled for tomorrow, with 299 of those timed.
But these difficulties didn’t slow down Tommaso Montanari, who climbed to a 29th place in the general classification, after ending today’s stage in 33rd, 35’16” from the winner, Kevin Benavides, despite a slight error in navigation.
“It was a really long day. After the special, we stopped for a couple of hours to fix the bikes, and it seemed like the race was over, but then we did almost an extra two hundred kilometers to get here. It was never ending,” Montanari told us, once he reached the bivouac, summing up these first three endless Dakar races. “The first stage was devastating. The stones were grueling and, at the end of the first day, I was already exhausted. I have to say, I feel a little better today. It seems like it’s been a week, but it’s actually been a week since we’ve been here, since we arrived on the thirty-first,” he said, smiling. “Tomorrow we’ll have sand, fast routes, and some parts with several stones but, theoretically speaking, it should be pretty easy.”
Forced to withdraw during the first stages of the competition during his debut in 2023, Tommaso has every intention of getting revenge in his second participation in the Dakar: his first as an official rider for the Fantic Racing team.
“I came from a first participation in the Dakar where I was already out due to an injury on the second day. So, I faced this Dakar 2.0 the right way, to see it through,” Tommaso stressed. “I hit it off right away with Fantic, also because we have the same goal for this year, which is to get to the end and bring all three bikes to the finish. Then we’ll see for next year.”
In addition to the support of an exceptional Team Manager such as Franco Picco, Montanari can also count on the support of his great friend, Danilo Petrucci, who’s closely following his race in Saudi Arabia.
“We always talk. We have a group, with other friends, in which we discuss the stage of the day and, more than anything else, they ask me how I feel physically and tell me to stay calm, because the race is long and there’s a lot of waiting,” the 32-year-old said, revealing the advice he received from Petrux before the start: “But, more than anything else, he said to relax and have fun, and not try to get a super result, but to be as calm as possible and finish the race.”
