INDIA in F1

Tag: TVS Sherco Racing

  • Stunning Harith Noah posts Dakar’s top-5; Second Rally2 stage win in 3 days: Stage 10

    Stunning Harith Noah posts Dakar’s top-5; Second Rally2 stage win in 3 days: Stage 10

    Al Ula (Saudi Arabia), 17 January 2024: Ace rider from India, Harith Noah, dished out stunning stuff to not only claim a historic second stage win in three days in the Rally 2 class but achieved a mind-boggling Overall fifth in the general rankings of the Motorcycle class in the tenth stage that was shaped by tricky navigation on Wednesday.

    Performance of the Day

    The heroic show by the Sherco TVS Rally Factory rider was hailed at the “Performance of the Day” by the Dakar 2024 team.

    “I can’t believe it!” It is how a visibly-pleased Harith Noah said after the stage. “I had almost perfect navigation and I felt good on the bike. There was a lot of dust today, and I had to be patient. I got a little lost at the end but overall, I did well. One more day is done and two to go. Tomorrow, it will be more complicated with more rocks. I have progressed since last year, but that is not my favourite terrain,” he concluded.

    With only 106 of the 142 riders that took the start in the Prologue, surviving the 12 day, the 30-year Kerala rider took a historic fifth place among the 106 riders. He is only the second rider from Rally 2 class who cracked the tough top-5 in Dakar 2024. Bradley Cox (BAS World KTM Racing) had already taken fourth place in Stage 1. On Wednesday, it was the Sherco factory rider Harith Noah, astride a 450 SEF Rally, the Sherco TVS Rally Factory rider came in fifth. It was a career-best performance for the Indian, who is racing in his fifth Dakar and has only managed to complete the rally once.

    Third Indian to finish Dakar

    Harith Noah at Dakar – INDIAinF1 image

    Back in 2021, he became the third Indian to finish the race, which he did in 20th place. Indian pioneer CS Santosh became the first Indian to finish Dakar in 2015 when he toiled for two weeks and came in 36th place. In 2019, another Sherco TVS rider, Aravind KP, became the second Indian to finish Dakar in 37th place, in his third attempt.

    First from India in top-5

    In 2023, Noah hurt his back and escaped a serious injury to the spinal cord and returned to competition in the Baja Aragón last January. He is now second overall in his class, just 4min 31sec behind Romain Dumontier. The inclusion of a rider from India in the line-up of the French brand Sherco can be traced back to their rally-raid partnership with the Indian maker TVS. India, represented by Harith and the constructor Hero, is making its mark on the Dakar scene. None of its entrants had ever-finished so high up in a stage of the Dakar before.

    Today’s loop – a tough one for navigation

    Harith Noah prides himself in his navigation and loves when it is tough. Fresh memories never lie. Seeing the loop carved out near Al Ula, starting and finishing at the bivouac where he had gathered less than two weeks ago, it was a given that this special was going to be a wild ride. The timed sector stretched for 371 kilometres on sandy terrain with a need for speed, either on the track or off-track, sometimes through rocky areas, but almost invariably with nuances to decipher in the road book. The showdown among the leading competitors was shaped by tricky navigation in the motorbike race and Noah cracked it with ease before a small hiccup in the end, but managed to stay safe and stayed on the top. It was a very nice loop around Al ULa, and the route offered exceptional landscapes with huge rocks but the riders had no time to enjoy any of it. They had to slalom through these rock formations, searching for the right track through the middle of the canyons. It was a magnificent stage, including a special that was over 370 km, which was announced as being less technical.

    His performance today was his best result in this most prestigious of rally-raids. He is now in second place in the provisional ranking of the Rally2 category and with two days remaining he is expected to do much better than his target – an Overall P15.

    Sherco teammate Goncalves’ heroics

    Harith Noah wins Stage 10 in Rally2 category, his second stage win in his class in three days.

    Noah’s teammate from Sherco, Rui Goncalves had bad visibility in the morning as it was greatly reduced by the presence of the sun.  Gonçalves suffered a significant fall at kilometer 5, damaging his motorcycle and severely twisting the handlebars. He also suffered physical injuries, requiring stitches to his elbow and he received a large hematoma on the thigh. Despite these difficulties, he managed to accomplish an impressive special stage. After his fall, he was in 24th position, but he persevered and eventually finished in 11th place, covering 365 km with twisted handlebars. This result is remarkable considering the difficult conditions!

    Rui Gonçalves said: “After my fall I knew that the day was going to be long and that I had to grit my teeth. This is what I tried to do throughout the whole day even though I was in a good amount of pain, I didn’t give up and we’re getting closer to a top-10 result. I went for a medical check-up at the end of the day. I will try to recover for tomorrow. The whole team is working to get prepared for the next stage. I want to thank everyone for all your encouraging messages which help me every day to get to the finish.”

    Stage 10 ranking

    Rui Gonçalves: P11

    Harith Noah: P5 (P1 in Rally2 class)

    Provisional general classification

    Rui Gonçalves: P24

    Harith Noah: P12

    Tomorrow – Penultimate Stage 11

    On Thursday, the riders will compete in the penultimate stage of the Dakar, from Alula to Yanbu, covering 527km, including 420km of special stages and 107km of liaison stages.

  • Harith Noah finishes 48h Chrono marathon stage at a career-best P12: Dakar Rally

    Harith Noah finishes 48h Chrono marathon stage at a career-best P12: Dakar Rally

    Riyadh (Saudi Arabia), 13 January 2024: Ace Sherco TVS rider, Harith Noah continued his strong campaign at Dakar Rally 2024 conquering the ‘48-hour Chrono’ marathon stage with a noteworthy 12th place in the general classification for bikes and a third place in the Rally2 class going into the rest day on Saturday

     Sherco TVS Factory rider, Noah has made outstanding progress in the 48-hour chrono stage, starting from 21st and climbing up to 12th by the end of the stage. In the overall rankings, he holds 13th position, climbing up from 18th. Harith Noah is sponsored by TVS, Sherco, Scott India, Red Bull India, Stanley Tools India, 100%, Alpine Stars and Mobius Braces.

    “This is the longest stage in my life. A 625km in the dunes. On the first day of the 2-day 48h Chrono Stage 6, I managed to do  a bulk of the run finishing 430km. I rode with Toni Mulec (Insta @tonimulec) and stopped to give Rui Goncalves of Hero MotoSports some spares. Stopping at 16:30 hours to sleep and go the next day at 6:30 am to do the rest of the stage. I had a few tip-overs and rolled down a big dune without the bike but that was about it, lots of drama but done,” said Harith Noah after the marathon stage. In fact, “the air bag opened up but ‘thanks God! nothing happened,” is how he dismissed it. Now he will have a day’s rest before tackling the second week of the Dakar. He is also involved in a bit of service helping his former training partner Mason Klein helping start his bike along with Dakar legend Nasser Attiyah.

    “Harith Noah rewrites the script! Halfway through the brutal Dakar Rally, he sits 13th overall, the highest ever for an Indian. He also bagged a historic podium finish in Rally2! Catch his inspiring journey unfold!,” said TVS Racing in it official Instagram handle.

    After six stages and a total of eight days of racing, including the prologue in AlUla, the 46th edition of the Dakar has been a roller-coaster of breakthrough performances, vindications, debacles, plot twists, comebacks and surprises on the tracks and dunes of Saudi Arabia. The culmination of the first week, the brand-new 48H Chrono concept, scattered drivers and co-drivers across the Empty Quarter and delivered on its promise: nearly every category saw a change in leadership as the field emerged from the dunes, just before the rest day in Riyadh.

    Bivouch during Stage 6 at Dakar before the rest day! Photo by Florent Gooden/DPPI

    Exactly at the midpoint, with another 2,384 kilometres of specials on equally diverse terrains ahead, the big kahunas will now get to grips with the return trip in their bids to claim victory in Yanbu.

    Ricky Brabec and his Honda teammates have laid down a marker; Carlos Sainz and Mattias Ekström‘s Audis are calling the shots ahead of Sébastien Loeb; Eryk Goczał is trouncing the opposition in the Challenger class; Yasir Seaidan‘s dominance in SSV race is softening the blow of Yazeed Al Rajhi‘s exit for the Saudi fans; and Martin Macík rolled into the capital as the king of the juggernauts.

    All in all, 291 out of the 330 vehicles at the start have completed the first half of the rally, including 111 motorbikes (out of 122), 8 quads (out of 10) for the FIM entrants; and 59 Ultimate cars (out of 70), 40 Challenger cars (out of 42), 30 SSVs (out of 36), 3 Stock cars (out of 3) and 40 trucks (out of 47). The Czech Ondřej Klymčiw continues to deliver a masterclass in the Dakar Classic regularity race.

    Motorbikes: Honda gains the upper hand

    Four years ago, Ricky Brabec won the Dakar while picking up two stage victories along the way. Could the American add a second trophy to his case this year by playing the quiet game again? Riding without fanfare, avoiding blunders and staying in the ideal position to press forward without taking excessive risks, Brabec took over the reins of the rally following the previous special, the sixth of the rally. In the top 3 since day one, the Honda rider has truly come into his own, gaining an edge over his rivals in the dunes of the Empty Quarter. Of course, with another six gruelling stages ahead, his margin of under a minute over Ross Branch is far from guaranteeing him the triumph that he has been chasing for such a long time, not least because there are other riders who are still in the running too. Adrien Van Beveren made hay of the long 48-hour stage in the Saudi sands to narrow his deficit to the lead group. Now third overall at 9′21″, the Frenchman remains a force to be reckoned with going into the second week. So is Nacho Cornejo, the winner of stages 2 and 4, who is just 14 minutes down on his Californian teammate and leader. A bit further down, Toby Price and Kevin Benavides fly the flag for KTM, less than half an hour behind Brabec. The Australian is biding his time, waiting for an opening to launch his attack, while the Argentinian, still grappling with the sequelae of a leg fracture, is picking up steam.

    On the flip side, multiple pretenders to the crown saw their hopes and dreams crushed in the opening week. Tosha Schareina, the Spanish rising star who signed for Honda, broke his wrist in the very first stage after bagging the prologue. Meanwhile, Skyler Howes lost plenty of time in the first few stages, eventually bowing out due to mechanical issues in the dunes of the Empty Quarter. Staying with Honda, Pablo Quintanilla was in the lead group when he ran out of fuel during the soul-crushing stage 6 and plummeted down the overall. Other early withdrawals include Sam Sunderland, who succumbed to a mechanical in stage 3; Sherco’s main hope, Lorenzo Santolino; and Joan Barreda, who was tackling his first Dakar with Hero. This leaves Ross Branch without a wingman for the second week of the rally after Joaquim Rodrigues and Sebastian Bühler crashed out of the race. Up against the mighty Honda brigade, the Botswanan will need a hefty dose of luck to overcome the many perils lurking on the road to Yanbu.

    Meanwhile, in Rally 2, the incredible Jean-Loup Lepan stormed to the lead after stage 6. The Frenchman, rock-solid since the Dakar got under way, also claimed stages 2 and 6 and, to top it off, he is sitting tenth overall, an hour and a half behind Ricky Brabec. Now second in the standings, Romain Dumontier held the lead for quite a while, but a fuel hiccup in stage 6 cost him a loss of 50 minutes to Lepan. Nursing a broken rib, the winner of the 2023 Rally-Raid World Cup will have to grit his teeth all the way to Yanbu to snag a spot on the final podium. Harith Noah, Paolo Lucci and Bradley Cox are piling on the pressure within half an hour of the leader. Heinz Kidigadner‘s young nephew Tobias Ebster is another man to watch. The Austrian is perched at the top of the Original by Motul leader board and clinched stage 5 in the Rally 2 class. He will be the talk of the town for a long time to come.

  • Harith Noah completes Stage 3 under rain in P33 : Dakar 2023

    Harith Noah completes Stage 3 under rain in P33 : Dakar 2023

    Ha’il (Saudi Arabia) 3 Jan 2023: Sherco TVS Factory Rally team’s Harith Noah, the only rider from India, finished a difficult Stage 3 successfully in the Dakar 2023 here on Tuesday.

    Today’s stage from Alula to Ha’Il was marked by heavy rainfall. The riders got very cold. The 670 km route, including 447 km of special.

    The 29-year TVS talent from Kerala started the day in a steady fashion and was in P41, about 40km into the Selective Section and by Way Point at 288km mark, he made up six places to take 35th position. He consistently improved positions in the next 200km and was running in 32nd position before finishing the stage at P33. Thus, he retained his Overall ranking of P32. However, Noah struggled today in the rain and mud and he was tested by the very technical course and the weather conditions as he had to do a the over 150km transport section under thunder showers. He looks forward to being able to fully express himself on the desert tracks.

    Harith Noah: “It was a 447-km special and I felt alright. I expected difficult navigation but finally it was pretty straight forward. Rain towards the end of the stage with a lot of water covering the tracks. The liaison after the stage was 160 km in thunder storm. Looking forward to the 425-km stage tomorrow,” said the TVS talent on social media.

    The degradation in weather conditions has made it no longer possible for the organisers to guarantee the best safety conditions for the competitors, so the riders have been halted at CP 2 (after 335 km) and CP3 (after 377 km). It appeared like Harith Noah already passed the 335 mark at that time. And thus the times were maintained for the riders who have reached the finishing line. For the others, calculations will be made for each of the riders in accordance with the average accomplished on the first part of the stage in order to attribute a finishing time to them.

    Harith Noah is the fastest rider from India at Dakar, having finished 20th in the 2021 edition at Saudi Arabia. He took part in all the editions in Saudi Arabia after making his Dakar debut here in 2020. He is sponsored by TVS, Sherco, Scott Sports India and Camelbak. Noah is a five-time Indian National champion in Supercross participating TVS Racing team colours.

    Today, the Dakar navigated through lands steeped in history, setting off from one of the centres of Nabatean civilisation on the way to Ha’il, which was a crossroads of commercial routes linking Europe to Asia. For the Dakar riders, drivers and crews, who had to tackle sometimes torrential weather conditions through the majestic canyons surrounding the sandy and sometimes rocky tracks, the challenge also involved having the capacity to focus on navigation where many criss-crossing tracks made it easy to get confused. Daniel Sanders proved to be a master at this game, displaying perfect regularity to win a fourth stage on the Dakar, just like Guerlain Chicherit, who began his roll of honour in 2006! Heavy rain shortened the stage to 377 kilometres for many of the riders, drivers and crews.

    OUTLINE
    It may be obvious, but fighting to win the title on the Dakar first and foremost requires thoughtfulness. It is not sure that Ricky Brabec forgot this major rule, but the American had an encounter with misfortune and joined the list of major favourites who have exited the race prematurely. The Honda rider fell after 274 km. With painful cervical vertebrae, he was transported to hospital, both conscious and able to move, in Ha’iI for further medical examinations. Following Sam Sunderland, within the space of three days, the rally has lost two of its former winners. Nevertheless, the pretenders for the crown continue to take their place, starting with Daniel Sanders, who posted the best intermediate times throughout the special before winning for the fourth time in his career on a stage of the Dakar, also taking the lead in the rally. The Australian’s lead in the general rankings was limited by the efforts of young Mason Klein, who benefited from the new rules awarding bonusses to the openers, to limit the damage and allow them to have a chance at outright victory (see stat of the day). Whilst the leaders in the bike race were relatively spared by the rain and hail which swept through the region, the weather conditions forced the organisers to shorten the special in order to preserve the emergency intervention capacities

  • Aishwarya begins well; Sherco TVS Factory Rally Team on a high: Baja Aragon

    Aishwarya begins well; Sherco TVS Factory Rally Team on a high: Baja Aragon

    • Michael & Adrien finish the prologue stage at P1 & P5 respectively

    Teruel, 21 July 2018:  The 35th edition of the Baja Aragon Rally kicked off here on Friday, in Teruel, Spain, with a free practice session and a prologue stage of 12.8 kilometers in the Spanish Terrain. At the end of the prologue stage, Sherco TVS Factory Rally team’s Michael Metge stood at P1 followed by Adrien Metge at P5. Debutant Aishwarya Pissay finished the prologue stage successfully.

    Aishwarya Pissay Baja Aragon on Friday. A TVS Sherco Racing team image

    David Casteu, Team Manager, Sherco TVS Factory Rally team said, “The prologue stage began on a good note with Michael Metge finishing at the top of the table. This is his first Rally with us and he is in excellent form finishing the stage 12 seconds in advance. This is the first time we have a woman representing Sherco TVS Rally Factory Team and Aishwarya has shown commendable spirit; her goal is to finish all stages and she is still getting used to the bike.   Adrien slowed down a bit because of his ankle injury but he will bounce back in the forthcoming stages. I wish them the best for the upcoming stages.”

    Commenting on his performance Michael Metge, Racer, Sherco TVS Factory Rally Team says, “Baja is a great learning ground as a part of the pre-Dakar series.  I am happy with this solid start and will do my best to keep the momentum going. The Sherco TVS team has extended immense support to me. It is a delight to race with Adrien and Aishwarya, both of them has showcased tremendous spirit.”

    Rankings for Prologue stage: Michael Metge – P1; Adrien Metge – P5