Argentina’s Kevin Benavides wins his second Dakar, beating Toby Price in the final stage

The excitement on the motorcycles continued until the last day of the rally. three drivers with options to be declared champions. He became the champion from Salta, winning the Dakar with Honda in 2021.

The final stage of the Dakar Al-Holuf and Dammam (Saudi Arabia), with 281 contact kilometers and 136 private kilometers, it was expected to be fast, a small section near the beach with some soil, lots of sand and a dry lake. The pilots even found mud (about 29 kilometers) from the rains of the last few days, which was the raid’s final stumbling block.

The starting order was the reverse of the general classification, started by the Spaniard. ruben saldana and was concluded by three candidates for the championship: American Skyler Howes (Husqvarna), Kevin Benavides and Toby Price.

This time the best were not in danger bonuses For opening the track that allowed Price to recover the lead by just 12 seconds on the penultimate day.

Howes, who was 1:31 behind the leader, was already self thrown eve of the final. No sooner said than done. He lost 1:40 to Kevin Benavides at the first checkpoint.

Thus, it is certain that the Dakar will be a race. duel between two people After the first 33 kilometers, the Argentine had dropped his 12 seconds overall from Price. After more than 43 hours of special events and prologues in fourteen stages, all was equal.

Benavides went further and endorsed Price. 1:49 at kilometer 68. After the first half of the special event, Dakar started heading towards Argentina. Australian Daniel Sanders (GasGas) was also fighting for the stage, just 19 seconds behind South America.

Price was not willing to throw in the towel and pressure. In the last intermediate step, Benavides’ advantage on stage reduced by twenty secondsat 1:29 (1:17 overall). There was still some emotion.

At the finish line, the Argentine signed the best time (1h15:17), 35 seconds better than Sanders set. Only Price was missing to confirm that the Dakar was heading to South America. It was. The Australian player pulled back another 34 seconds, but fell short. He finished the stage 55 seconds behind Benavides and 43 seconds overall in the rally.

valenced Tosha Schareina (GasGas) was the best Spaniard of the last stage, ninth, 5:47 behind Benavides and Salamanca’s Lorenzo Santolino (Sherco) finished twelfth in 7:37, but finished Dakar in the top 10, 1:38 He finished ninth in :04.

The overall podium was completed by Howes, who calmly took the last stage and finished 5:04 behind the champion.

Inside Rally2the title went to the Frenchman Romain Dumontier (Husqvarna) and Original from Motul Spaniard Javi Vega (Yamaha) took silver, 17:16 behind champion South African Charan Moore (Husqvarna).