It was the big news of the Dakar 2024 and as such also the most awaited stage. The Saudi race today held the first half of the special split over two days in the boundless desert of the Empty Quarter, which will impose over 620 km of navigation between the dunes on the protagonists of the race reserved for motorbikes between today and tomorrow.
The format envisaged that today the pilots would have time to race until 4pm local time (2pm in Italy), then they would have to approach one of the seven bivouacs set up along the route, where tonight they will sleep only with a sleeping bag and tent, after dining on a military ration of food. However, given the very high pace shown by the men in the classification, the Race Direction decided that in any case it would not have been possible to go beyond bivouac F, after approximately 513 timed kilometres.
Ten riders have reached that point and, although we will clearly have to wait until tomorrow's finish line to draw up a definitive ranking, we can begin to take stock of what happened today. And it must be said that the day seems to have definitely smiled on Honda, because at the moment the fastest was Adrien van Beveren, who went arm in arm with teammate Ricky Brabec, over whom he has a margin of 1'21″.
A result that would take the American virtually to the top of the general classification, given that leader Ross Branch is sixth with his Hero among the riders who reached bivouac F, 7'56″ behind van Beveren. In the virtual general classification, therefore , Brabec would have overtaken him by 2'48″. However, also watch out for the Frenchman, who is reducing his gap from the top day by day, which would now only be 13'02″. However, between him and Branch there is still the other Honda of Nacho Cornejo, virtually third at 6 '37″ after having collected 14'57″ from his teammate despite 4'26″ of bonuses for having opened the track.
Toby Price's leap forward is noteworthy, as he is the only one of the KTM riders to have kept up with the pace of the leading tandem, being third in the day's standings at 1'49″. A pace that places him in fifth place in the general virtual, albeit separated by just over 28 minutes, in which he overtook by about ten seconds the other KTM of last edition's winner, the Argentinian Kevin Benavides, who was not particularly brilliant today.
Among the men in the rankings, Daniel Sanders' day was also positive, fourth at 3'32″, but also that of world champion Luciano Benavides, currently fifth at 6'07″ despite an annoying compartment syndrome problem. In the virtual general they appear in the same order, but in seventh and eighth position, separated by 36 and 46 minutes respectively.
However, yesterday's stage winner Pablo Quintanilla's hopes of a final victory went up in smoke as he ran out of petrol on his Honda after 184 km. An inconvenience that cost him over an hour's stop and therefore cut him out of the fight at the top. Similar story for Romain Dumontier: the Frenchman, who in these first days of the race had been firmly in the top 10, ran out of steam 2 km from bivouac D and lost over an hour.
Among those who reached bivouac F was Joan Barreda. The Hero veteran was the victim of a fall yesterday in which he took a bad hit to the sternum and was in doubt whether to continue his adventure or not. Today he gritted his teeth and, despite being able to count on over 8 minutes of bonuses, he earned just under half an hour. But for him, still being in the race is already half a victory.
The special restart tomorrow when it will be 6.15am local time, 4.15am in Italy, and then we will finally have a definitive ranking for both the stage and the general one.
Quad: head to head between Giroud and Andujar
As regards the race reserved for the Quads, only the two pacesetters went as far as Bivouac D, with the winner of the last two editions, the Frenchman Alexandre Giroud, who got there with a margin of 2'14″ over the virtual leader Manuel Andujar.
In the virtual general, therefore, the gap between the two was virtually reduced to 18'05″. It was more difficult to evaluate the situation of Marcelo Medeiros, because the Brazilian interrupted his special shortly before, at km 398. Until that moment, however, he had gained about ten minutes on the leading tandem.
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