The short fifth stage of the Dakar 2024, which precedes the two-day marathon scheduled for Thursday and Friday, looked like the sprint it was billed to be. The starting order of the “48 hours” being reversed compared to the results of the day’s special, there was no question of calculating for the bikers, unlike the car drivers.
In this little game, Adrien Van Beveren (Honda) came very close to his first victory in this edition, but the Frenchman was finally beaten by one of his teammates, Pablo Quintanilla, who was the fastest by 37 seconds. only. The Chilean, who thus signs his first success on this Dakar, completed the 118 km of special in 1h32’53”, but the gaps are obviously tight and the first ten are held in less than five minutes.
Behind Van Beveren, the Australian Toby Price (KTM) finished 3rd at 1’39”, the Australian Daniel Sanders (GasGas) 4th at 2”58, the American Mason Klein (Kove) 5th at 3’01 , the Botswanan Ross Branch (Hero) 6th at 3’42”, the American Ricky Brabec (Honda) 7th at 3’48”, the Slovakian Stefan Svitko (Slonaft) 8th at 4’10” and the Argentinian Luciano Benavides (Husqvarna) 9th at 4’22”. His brother, Kevin (KTM), is 12th at 5’35”, ahead of Jose Cornejo (Honda), 13th at 6’11”.
The Chilean’s relative poor performance made him fall from his leadership chair and it was Branch who took over. The Botswanan is now 1’14” ahead of Cornejo. Brabec follows at 3’47”, Van Beveren at 18’10” and Kevin Benavides at 21’17”. The winner of the day, Quintanilla, is 6th at 26’47”.
