Paulo Gonçalves wins Stage 3 of the Morocco Rally

The third stage of the Morocco Rally has left Paulo Gonçalves as the winner. The rider managed to beat the current leader of the competition by just three seconds, as Helder Rodrigues finished second, and this result has put him back in first place in the provisional general classification of the event, which is very interesting for the man from Honda who started the day 1 with a victory and always in the leading group.

Behind the two leading riders, Chaleco López placed third, although almost three minutes behind, which is a good cut compared with the first two participants, so there is still work to do to keep improving. Joan Barreda was fourth again, having joined the leading group on every day, finishing more than five minutes behind the winner. Closing the top 5 was David Casteu, 5 min and 49 seconds behind Gonçalves.

The top 10 was completed by Sunderland 6th, Botturi 7th, Fish 8th, Verhoeven 9th and Zanol 10th, while Cyril Despres, the leader of the event until now, finished 11th, losing the provisional honour position to Rodrigues, who with his second place becomes the leader of the event again with a 4-minute lead over the Frenchman. For his part, Barreda would move up to 3rd place, less than 10 minutes behind the first.

Today’s bad news is the possible fall of Marc Coma. The Catalan rider from KTM seems to have suffered a fall which has not been confirmed for the moment, but which has put him out of contention on this day, and he was helped by Rodrigues, who stopped to lend a hand to Coma, so the Portuguese rider recovered 7 minutes, which changed the classification that had been presented at first. We do not have much information about Coma’s condition, and we do not want to speculate, so we will have to wait to see what official sources say, although we hope it is nothing serious.

Stage 3 Final:

1. Gonçalves 2:52:24
2. Rodrigues, at 03″
3. Chaleco, at 2’50”
4. Barreda, at 5’28”
5. Casteu, at 5’49”
6. Sunderland, at 6’03”
7. Botturi, at 8’06”
8. Fish, at 8’31”
9. Verhoeven, at 8’32”
10. Zanol, at 9’58”

Provisional general classification after stage 3:

1. Rodrigues 09:29:42
2. Despres at 00:11:01
3. Barreda at 00:16:21
4. Gonçalves at 00:17:35
5. Chaleco at 00:26:35
6. Verhoeven at 00:39:09
7. Pain at 00:41:41
8. Zanol at 00:42:30
9. Pedrero at 00:44:09
10. Botturi at 00:45:39

Photo | FIM