DAKAR 2022, STAGE 10

Toby Price posted the best time in stage 10, which was considered a very technical day of riding. The 375-kilometer timed special was mostly made up of fast sandy tracks, with a couple of dirt sections and dunes adding to the mix. Although navigation was relatively straightforward, it was still easy to make a costly mistake when picking a route through the stage. America’s three remaining riders all had solid days, and now all three are in the top 10 of the provisional standings. Andrew Short posted sixth-place finish today and now is in seventh overall. His teammate Adrien Van Beveren is in the provisional lead after finishing third today. If he stays there, it will be Yamaha’s first win in the rally since 1998. Mason Klein continues to have a charmed ride, turning in a 12th-place finish to climb into 8th overall. He is leading the Rally 2 class easily. And Ricky Brabec is finally in the top 10. He started up front, which usually makes for a poor result, but still managed to finish 15th, losing only 9 minutes to the stage winner.

Unfortunately for last year’s winner Kevin Benavides, his 2022 Dakar Rally campaign has come to a close following an undisclosed technical issue with his KTM. Starting the special in third, he was forced to stop at kilometer 133. Unable to complete the stage, Kevin will return to the bivouac and hopefully re-start the event tomorrow, although he will not be eligible to feature in the final classification.

Toby Price: “It’s been a really good day for me today. I focused on my roadbook the whole way and did a good job with my navigation with only a couple of small mistakes over the whole stage. I’ve moved nicely up the order overall, but there is still a bit of a gap to the front guys. As we know, anything can happen in rally, so I’ll give it my all for these last two days and we’ll see where we end up.”

Andrew Short: “Stage 10 was really fun and I’m really happy to have posted my best result of the rally. It was a cool stage that flowed well with a bit of everything, rocks, canyons, some dunes, and even some dust which we haven’t, fortunately, seen too much of this year. I did make one small mistake which cost me a little bit of time, but not too much, so maybe my result would have been better without that. We’re getting close to the finish line now so two to go and I’m excited for tomorrow.”

Mason Klein: “Pretty good day for me had a little spill in the camel grass but all is good and I am resting for tomorrow.”

Ricky Brabec: “Today was good. This was stage 10, so we’re almost at the finish. I was up front with Nacho most of the day. We made a slight mistake which cost a little time, but in the end it was perfect for us because we are in a good spot for stage 11 which is supposed to be tricky. Like we said before, we don’t know which stage is tricky and which is not. It’s up in the air as far as strategy goes. Tomorrow we are in a good spot to push and see what we have to do. I’m very happy with this. The team’s doing a good job. After tomorrow we will know exactly where we’ll finish. I feel we have a lot of energy, so we’ll do our best.”

STAGE 10

PROVISIONAL STANDINGS AFTER STAGE 10