CS Santosh Dakar Rally 2015: Stage 8 Update

CS Santosh is making a very strong presence in the Dakar Rally. He is currently in the 42nd position, his best in Dakar 2015 till date.

The 31 year old finished stage 8 in the 32nd spot and continues to slowly move up the list in the overall ranking in the motorcycle category.

Stage 8 of Dakar has been way more than eventful. Spanish rider and four time Dakar Rally champion Marc Coma has moved his name right to the top of the overall ranking for the motorcycle class. He is now leading the race.

Joan Barreda, the Spaniard who was leading the race till Stage 7 has dropped way down the ranking page to the 24th position.

The Sherco TVS team has registered the seventh and fifteenth spot in the overall ranking with French riders Alain Duclos and teammate Fabien Planet respectively.

Stage 8 of the Dakar Rally took the riders all the way to riding 4000 metres above sea level and the planned 781 km route was shortened as well due to bad weather conditions. Almost 40 riders had to retire or get treated for hypothermia.

The salt water terrain of yesterday's route was very tough on the motorcycles as well. Many top riders lost precious time and many experienced technical difficulties.

Stage 8 was won by Pablo Qunitanilla on his KTM in first place, followed by Joan Pedrero on a Yamaha in second and Stefan Svitko on a KTM in third. Barreda finished stage 8 in the 80th spot, taking him all the way down to 24th place in the overall rankings with Marc Coma finishing the stage in the 9th spot.

The overall standings is led by Marc Coma in first, Paolo Goncalves in second and Pablo Qunitanilla in the third place.

The overall standings are as follows: