Lorenzo Santolino He headed to Saudi Arabia after undergoing surgery on his right foot. His physique was not the best, but his goal of finishing among the top five in the Dakar prevailed. The test imposed its law of toughness and the man from Guijuelo added four falls. The last one, in Stage 2, reopened the wound that was dragging on his knee. It was his final goodbye to the rally.
The pilot has reappeared again at Guijuelo’s stand at Fiturwhere he told Salamanca24horas about his current status and his next steps. “Physically I’m fine, in the sense that my foot hardly hurts anymore, the inflammation has gone down. My knee is also better, but it’s true that last week my open wound got infected.. It has been a bit complicated few days due to the infection. We changed antibiotics and now it has subsided quite a bit,” acknowledged Santolino, “already a little back to normal.”
The man from Guijuelo is eager to be one hundred percent recovered to start training and be at a good level for the his next appointment: the Rally of Portugal. “It is not as intense as the Dakar, but It’s a bit of a way to get back to the action and, above all, to return to the normality of training a little bit.” Lorenzo feels that since the end of November he has not been able to prepare as he would like.
The Portuguese competition will probably be followed by Ruta 40 (Argentina), the Morocco Rally and Baja Aragón. “It’s kind of the idea. Those four races are the ones we almost always do.” Also those that serve as a prelude to what is considered the toughest test in the world in the motor field: “The idea is to be as good as possible again for the next Dakar.”
