Third day of competition and third different winner for the motorcycle category at the Dakar 2024. Nacho Cornejo was the one celebrating at the finish line in Al Duwadimi, after 463 timed km, allowing Honda to put the disappointment of Toscha's withdrawal behind it Schareina occurred in yesterday's stage.
The Chilean driver was constantly in the top positions in today's special, but it was at km 342 that he took command of the operations, never leaving it until the end of the timed section. In the end Cornejo prevailed by 6'35″ over the world champion Luciano Benavides, who with his Husqvarna had led for about a hundred kilometers in the first phase. The gap between the two, however, was made so wide by the 4'14″ of bonuses that the South American driver earned by opening the track for a good part of the journey.
With this success, his seventh in his career at the Dakar, the representative of the Japanese company moved to second place in the general classification. Finding himself leading the way, leader Ross Branch was in fact late in the first kilometres, but was then also able to rely on 4'10″ of bonuses. At the end of the stage, the gap to the Hero driver was 12'18″. “. A delay that kept him out of the top 10 of the day, but which allowed him to continue to lead the overall with a 2'30” advantage over Cornejo.
The Hondas particularly stood out in this second stage, with Pablo Quintanilla missing out on second place by just 13 seconds and Ricky Brabec placing fourth, also favored by 5'44″ of bonuses. After all, he , Cornejo and Branch were together for a good part of the day and they were the only ones to benefit from the bonuses.
In the overall it is therefore a trio of Japanese bikes chasing Branch's Hero, with Brabec and Quintanilla who, however, are in reversed order in third and fourth position, separated by 6'50″ and 15'30″ respectively. Thanks to today's second place, Luciano Benavides completes the top 5 overall, 17'33″ behind with his Husqvarna, which is therefore the first among the Pierer group's bikes.
Fifth place in the stage was also good for Sebastian Buhler's other Hero, but the Indian team is doing decidedly well in this first part of the race, because Joan Barreda also set the eighth fastest time. The Spanish veteran occupies tenth place overall, 21'07″ behind his teammate, while Buhler is currently further behind.
The sixth stage time places Sam Sunderland's GasGas in seventh place overall, just over 18 minutes behind. The Brit remains about a minute behind his teammate Daniel Sanders, who today remained outside the top 10. Having said that Barreda's tenth place, in the overall between him and Sunderland we then find two other men in the rankings such as Toby Price and Adrien van Beveren .
For now, however, the winner of the 2023 edition, the Argentinian Kevin Benavides, is struggling, but he arrived in Saudi Arabia not in 100% physical condition due to injuries sustained in recent months. Today the KTM rider recorded over 20 minutes and therefore overall remains outside the top 10.
However, it went better for him than other protagonists of the first two days. For the Spaniard Lorenzo Santolino the race ended after just 17 km, when his Sherco left him stranded with a technical problem. Mechanical problems also occurred on Mason Klein's Kove, who came close to winning the stage yesterday. The American managed to resume his march, but lost over two hours, so his dreams of glory should already be over.
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