Toby Price continues to climb and has already been put in charge of the general again after winning today’s stage and take advantage of the decline that has suffered its closest rival, Paulo Gonçalves, who nevertheless has been second to five minutes. Pablo Quintillana closed the Top 3 of the day and goes to Stefan Svitko overall.
The Dakar returned to action after a day off and rebuked the march with a special of 393 kilometers from Salta and Belén. The stretch was the first to desert and where navigation was the key, which has been instrumental in the development stage, where we have seen surprises and where pilots have seen much better days back home.
Toby Price has completely dominated this segment and has won a new stage victory, which has been so far ahead that step has managed to get the lead in the overall standings, recovering after several days when you had to make a great comeback after suffering problems in the third stage.
The leader these days, the Portuguese Paulo Gonçalves, suffered a hard fall to become unbalanced in a fast bumpy area, which fortunately has not caused him any injury. Only a scare that has cost some minutes and lost the lead. Still, the Honda Pilot has maintained a very high pace up made it possible will be second on the stage to five seconds Australian KTM, and is just two minutes Price in general.
The third day was the Chilean rider of Husqvarna, Pablo Quintillana, who has completed a good stage and has maintained the lead six minutes. In addition he has cut two minutes Stefan Svitko, third overall, which is already only seven minutes of it. Undoubtedly, the Chilean amazing performance with this mount, a priori inferior to those presented in this Dakar KTM and Honda.
Kevin Benavides, one of the surprises of this year, continues to maintain a rapid pace as second Honda on track. The Argentine has been fifth in the stage and remains in this position overall, which is 25 minutes Price. Antoine Meo, winner of the last stage, has had a discreet performance today, and despite maintaining sixth place overall, now has left few seconds with rivals to be eighth, behind Helder Rodrigues and Gerard Farres, approaching the French in general.
Juan Pedrero and Alain Duclos close the Top 10 overall after the eighth stage despite staying away from the French Top 10 of today’s stage, which closed in tenth Adrien Van Beveren, 12th overall. As catalan riders, also it highlights the good performances of Jordi Viladoms, Laia Sanz and Ivan Cervantes, who have been in the Top 20 in today’s stage and maintained with options in general. Sanz has won 14th position and it is an hour and six minutes off the pace, although Ivan Cervantes and Viladoms followed right behind a few minutes. We’ll see how it ends this fight between Catalans.
Tomorrow the Dakar continues in Belén with the ninth stage in which the pilots will have to make a total of 396 kilometers aside navigation in what will be a marathon stage marked by the intense heat, which could leave us new surprises in the category Motorcycle.