After being deprived of the success of the third stage due to a penalty, Pablo Quintanilla returned to the attack and hit the mark in the fifth stage of the 2024 Dakar, the first which took the caravan to the Empty Quarter, the largest desert in the entire planet. Today's special was just 118 km, but challenging because it was all on the dunes. Without forgetting that to get to the start of the special scheduled between Al-Hofuf and Shubaytah the riders had to deal with a transfer of around 500 km.
Once again, therefore, it was a Honda that celebrated at the finish line of the timed section, but the Indians of Hero are once again in command, thanks to Ross Branch who is confirming himself as the most consistent rider in this first week of the race . Thanks to the sixth stage time of 3'42″, the Botswana rider managed to overtake Nacho Cornejo again by 1'14″, forced to open the track today and therefore 14th at 6'11″ despite 49 seconds of discounts.
As mentioned, however, the hero of the day was Quintanilla who, taking advantage of a good starting position (he was 18th at the start), was able to follow the tracks opened by the other big names and was the fastest for practically the entire route , although in reality after 39 km it was a surprise that the Portuguese Bruno Santos was in command, but then at a distance he broke away from the best, finishing almost 10 minutes behind.
Once he took the lead at the 80th km mark, the Chilean then maintained the lead until the finish line, thus giving his country its second consecutive success after Cornejo's yesterday. In the end he prevailed by just 37 seconds over the other Honda of teammate Adrien van Beveren, thus achieving his seventh career victory in the Dakar, which he had been denied two days ago for exceeding the speed limit in a neutralization area.
Today we also witnessed the first sharp performance in this edition of a veteran like Toby Price, who brought his KTM to third position, just 1'39″ from the winner, preceding the GasGas of a revived Daniel Sanders, who in turn he recovered well from a complicated day experienced yesterday. Overall, however, these two still remain quite distant, in eighth and ninth position, both over half an hour behind the leader Branch. The top 5 of the day is then completed with Mason Klein, now far from any ambitions of ranking, but always fast when his Kove doesn't make him pay the bill with technical problems.
As mentioned, Branch finished sixth, just 6 seconds ahead of the other Honda of Ricky Brabec. His pursuers are precisely the standard bearers of the Japanese brand, because behind Cornejo there is the American, who in turn pays only 3'47″. But be careful not to underestimate van Beveren, who with today's second place has returned to fourth , reducing his gap to 18'10″.
The Frenchman managed to steal the position from the winner of the last edition, the Argentinian Kevin Benavides, who remains the best of the KTM riders overall with fifth position, even if today he did not go beyond the 13th stage time, maintaining its always late around 20 minutes. His brother, the world champion Luciano, was lucky, as in the final 5 kilometers of the special he suffered problems with his Husqvarna, with the engine turning on and off, but he managed to complete the test, even though with the ninth time he was overtaken in the overall by Quintanilla, dropping back to seventh.
Among the men in the rankings, it was another complicated stage for Joan Barreda, who had a fall with his Hero from which he got up apparently without any consequences, other than the 10'25″ he gained on arrival. A gap that left him kept out of the top 20 of the day, as well as out of the top 10 of the general, in which Romain Dumontier's Husqvarna resists, today 11th.
Paolo Lucci still deserves a good job, because today the Italian rider finished just 6'24″ behind the winner, managing to place himself in the top 15 of the stage. A result that keeps his KTM in 20th place also in the general classification, with just under an hour and a half of delay accumulated towards the pacesetter Branch.
Dakar 2024 | General Moto ranking after Stage 5
Pos | Pilot | Motorcycle | Time/Gap | Penalty |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Ross Branch | Hero | 19.05'03” | +1'00″ |
2 | Jose Cornejo | Honda | +1'14″ | |
3 | Ricky Brabec | Honda | +3'47″ | +1'00″ |
4 | Adrien van Beveren | Honda | +18'10″ | |
5 | Kevin Benavides | KTM | +21'17″ | |
6 | Pablo Quintanilla | Honda | +26'47″ | +6'00″ |
7 | Luciano Benavides | Husqvarna | +30'36″ | |
8 | Toby Price | KTM | +31'36″ | |
9 | Daniel Sanders | GasGas | +37'44″ | |
10 | Romain Dumontier | Husqvarna | +38'52″ |
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