<p class="title">Indian rider C S Santosh crashed out in the fifth stage of the 41st edition of the Dakar Rally even as his Hero MotorSports team-mates Oriol Mena and Joaquim Rodrigues dished out gritty performances to reach the finishing line on an incident-filled day here.</p>.<p class="bodytext">The Stage 5 of Dakar 2019 turned out to be an extremely tough and dangerous day for the competitors, claiming its fair share of casualties on Friday.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Santosh suffered a nasty crash between the waypoint 4 and 5, scuttling his chances to pursue the stage further.</p>.<p class="bodytext">The crash brought a premature end to Santosh’s attempt to conquer a record fifth Dakar by an Indian.</p>.<p class="bodytext">According to last received reports, his condition is stable and is currently being attended to by the medical team at a hospital in Tacna.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Not just Santosh, his team-mates Mena and Rodrigues too had a rough outing with both crashing once in the stage.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Mena's crash was quite bad as he lost his bearings for some time after the crash, but miraculously made it to the finish line.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Despite losing time due to the crash, Rodrigues gained some positions, finishing the stage in 18th place.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Mena too overcame the crash to finish the stage in the 16th place.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Overall, after stage 5, Mena managed to retain his overnight 12th pot while Rodrigues climbed up three positions to be placed 28th in the overall rankings.</p>.<p class="bodytext">The fifth stage was quite fast with all the riders going flat out in waves of 10 in a motocross style start.</p>.<p class="bodytext">The presence of fesh-fesh severely impaired the visibility for the riders coming at the back, and stones hidden away in the course of the route made it even more dangerous.</p>.<p class="bodytext">The riders encountered insurmountable dunes in the later part of the stage which compounded their difficulty levels.</p>.<p class="bodytext">The rally will now come to a halt for half a day, giving some respite to the competitors, teams and the organisation to replenish their energies and take a stock of their performances thus far.</p>.<p class="bodytext">The rally will hit the road again Saturday evening for a semi-marathon stage where the riders will camp at a separate bivouac.</p>.<p class="bodytext">From Saturday night onwards, the rally will start backtracking the route back to Lima with stage 6 taking them back to the dusty San Juan De Marcona.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Mena said it was a difficult day in office for all the riders and wished a speedy recovery for his team-mate Santosh.</p>.<p class="bodytext">"The beginning was really nice and easy with comfortable riding. But then at around 268km I think I hit a stone and had a massive crash. But it’s the Dakar and these things happen,” the Spaniard said.</p>
<p class="title">Indian rider C S Santosh crashed out in the fifth stage of the 41st edition of the Dakar Rally even as his Hero MotorSports team-mates Oriol Mena and Joaquim Rodrigues dished out gritty performances to reach the finishing line on an incident-filled day here.</p>.<p class="bodytext">The Stage 5 of Dakar 2019 turned out to be an extremely tough and dangerous day for the competitors, claiming its fair share of casualties on Friday.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Santosh suffered a nasty crash between the waypoint 4 and 5, scuttling his chances to pursue the stage further.</p>.<p class="bodytext">The crash brought a premature end to Santosh’s attempt to conquer a record fifth Dakar by an Indian.</p>.<p class="bodytext">According to last received reports, his condition is stable and is currently being attended to by the medical team at a hospital in Tacna.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Not just Santosh, his team-mates Mena and Rodrigues too had a rough outing with both crashing once in the stage.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Mena's crash was quite bad as he lost his bearings for some time after the crash, but miraculously made it to the finish line.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Despite losing time due to the crash, Rodrigues gained some positions, finishing the stage in 18th place.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Mena too overcame the crash to finish the stage in the 16th place.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Overall, after stage 5, Mena managed to retain his overnight 12th pot while Rodrigues climbed up three positions to be placed 28th in the overall rankings.</p>.<p class="bodytext">The fifth stage was quite fast with all the riders going flat out in waves of 10 in a motocross style start.</p>.<p class="bodytext">The presence of fesh-fesh severely impaired the visibility for the riders coming at the back, and stones hidden away in the course of the route made it even more dangerous.</p>.<p class="bodytext">The riders encountered insurmountable dunes in the later part of the stage which compounded their difficulty levels.</p>.<p class="bodytext">The rally will now come to a halt for half a day, giving some respite to the competitors, teams and the organisation to replenish their energies and take a stock of their performances thus far.</p>.<p class="bodytext">The rally will hit the road again Saturday evening for a semi-marathon stage where the riders will camp at a separate bivouac.</p>.<p class="bodytext">From Saturday night onwards, the rally will start backtracking the route back to Lima with stage 6 taking them back to the dusty San Juan De Marcona.</p>.<p class="bodytext">Mena said it was a difficult day in office for all the riders and wished a speedy recovery for his team-mate Santosh.</p>.<p class="bodytext">"The beginning was really nice and easy with comfortable riding. But then at around 268km I think I hit a stone and had a massive crash. But it’s the Dakar and these things happen,” the Spaniard said.</p>