Santi Navarro and Pedrito López win the Kazakhstan rally on T3

Rally Kazakhstan

08/06/2018

They did it. The team formed by Santi Navarro and Pedrito López, always on their
Yamaha XYZ 1000R, has won the Kazakhstan rally on the T3 category, earning the
second position in the world championship’s overall ranking. The Kazakhstan rally took
place May 20-27 in the surroundings of the Gobi Desert.
“It was desert steppes with lots of dangers, mainly the ditches that made many cars
crash and sag from the first positions”, explains Pedrito López. To all this, we must add
the dunes and the fess-fess dust, a kind of floury dust that poses a significant problem
for the open-to-air Yamaha XYZ 1000R.
Harsh conditions on the Central Asian rally, which had six very long stages, between
300 and 430 km each, plus the respective linkups. But after a discreet start, Santi
Navarro and Pedrito López recovered positions, won the penultimate stage on their
category, and above all, secured a magnificent final victory after leading the three final
stages.
They will not forget easily their tour by Kazakh territory, because of the achieved result,
of course, but also because of the salt lakes beautiful views, amongst them the Caspian
Sea they could admire on the last stages.
Now it is crucial to focus on the next rally, Italian Baja, which will take place June 21-
24. “It is a shorter race”, outlines cautiously Pedrito López; but the fact is that, with
roughly half of the world championship completed, they have attained an encouraging
second position in the overall ranking.