With a full day’s rest under the belts, after Sunday’s day off, the competitors of the 2016 Dakar Rally
once again had to go back to work. Tackling the difficult and taxing
route ahead of them in Argentina, Stage 8 showed that the true Dakar
Rally starts now.
With two special stages divided by a
neutralization zone, there were plenty of opportunities to make time and
to lose it. For Honda’s Paulo Gonçalves, it was the latter. The overall
race leader crashed hard, and lost time in the process.
For KTM’s
Toby Price though, it was the prior. Price will start tomorrow’s stage
knowing that he has two-minute advantage over Gonçalves. As is the often
the case with the iconic race, the 2016 Dakar Rally is far from over.
It
all went bad for Gonçalves when the Portuguese rider had a high-speed
crash in a potholed section of the course. Violently thrown from his
bike, Gonçalves was lucky to escape without injury, but his Honda CRF450
Rally didn’t fare as well, with its instrumental panel broke.
“Today’s
stage was typical of the type that we expect at the Dakar, with a lot
of navigation,” said Gonçalves. “I fell in a bumpy, sandy area and
luckily I didn’t get hurt but I damaged the instrument panel. I had to
grip onto it with one hand and ride with the other for quite some
kilometres. I’m happy to have not lost too much time. Tomorrow I will
try and win it back.”
Winning the stage by a five-minute margin,
Stage 8 was a good day for KTM’s Toby Price. He now leads Honda’s Paulo
Gonçalves by two minutes, and is looking more and more confident in this
Dakar Rally.
“The first part started out on big open roads and I
think we dropped a little bit of time there,” said Price. “But just
getting through it was a pretty fast track so we were looking forward to
the second part where it was going to get more technical and more
difficult. We did pretty well in the sand dunes and we pushed through
the navigation.”
14 minutes back, and in third place overall is
Stefan Svitko. The Slovakian rider is having a fantastic Dakar, and
giving the KTM Factory Racing boys something to be embarrassed about.
With hard stages ahead, one cannot rule him out of the overall win,
though he will have to begin his attack tomorrow on Stage 9.
Also
in the hunt is Husqvarna’s Pablo Quintanilla, who was third-fastest on
Stage 8, and sits fourth overall, 21 minutes back. He will need some
help from his competitors to have a real chance at the 2016 Dakar Rally,
but in rally-raid racing, a 21-minute deficit is not insurmountable.
“This
was the first day in the desert and with navigation. It was a difficult
stage, but also a positive one,” said Quintanilla. “I felt good during
the day so I think we made a good step. I finished third and that was
the intention at the start of the day, so I think it was a really good
day.”
Tomorrow’s Stage 9 will be the shortest day of riding for
the 2016 Dakar Rally Competitors, with 436km total distance and a 285km
special.
Just because it is short though, doesn’t mean it will be
easy, as Tuesday is also the start of the second marathon stage. This
means that once the riders enter Belén, they will not be able to have
contact with their team mechanics.
Top 10 from Stage 8 – Salta to Belén – of the 2016 Dakar Rally:
| Pos. | Rider | Country | Brand | Time | Diff | Penalty |
| 1 | PRICE | AUS | KTM | 04:33:14 | – | – |
| 2 | GONCALVES | PRT | HONDA | 04:38:31 | 00:05:17 | – |
| 3 | QUINTANILLA | CHL | HUSQVARNA | 04:39:46 | 00:06:32 | – |
| 4 | SVITKO | SVK | KTM | 04:41:16 | 00:08:02 | – |
| 5 | BENAVIDES | ARG | HONDA | 04:41:20 | 00:08:06 | – |
| 6 | RODRIGUES | PRT | YAMAHA | 04:42:33 | 00:09:19 | – |
| 7 | FARRES GUELL | ESP | KTM | 04:44:01 | 00:10:47 | – |
| 8 | MEO | FRA | KTM | 04:44:04 | 00:10:50 | – |
| 9 | PEDRERO GARCIA | ESP | SHERCO TVS | 04:44:22 | 00:11:08 | – |
| 10 | VAN BEVEREN | FRA | YAMAHA | 04:48:21 | 00:15:07 | – |
Overall Top 10 of the 2016 Dakar Rally:
| Pos. | Rider | Country | Brand | Time | Diff | Penalty |
| 1 | PRICE | AUS | KTM | 27:28:56 | – | – |
| 2 | GONCALVES | PRT | HONDA | 27:31:01 | 00:02:05 | – |
| 3 | SVITKO | SVK | KTM | 27:43:10 | 00:14:14 | 00:01:00 |
| 4 | QUINTANILLA | CHL | HUSQVARNA | 27:50:22 | 00:21:26 | – |
| 5 | BENAVIDES | ARG | HONDA | 27:54:51 | 00:25:55 | – |
| 6 | MEO | FRA | KTM | 27:57:40 | 00:28:44 | – |
| 7 | RODRIGUES | PRT | YAMAHA | 27:59:47 | 00:30:51 | 00:02:00 |
| 8 | FARRES GUELL | ESP | KTM | 28:06:28 | 00:37:32 | – |
| 9 | PEDRERO GARCIA | ESP | SHERCO TVS | 28:08:37 | 00:39:41 | 00:02:00 |
| 10 | DUCLOS | FRA | SHERCO TVS | 28:14:07 | 00:45:11 | – |
Source : Asphalt & Rubber
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