The 11th edition of the Desafio Ruta 40 YPF was over today with the arrival of the caravan in Salta, northeast of Argentina. All four riders from the Monster Energy Honda Team reached the end and Dakar winner Ricky Brabec got a podium position.
Also riding an Honda CRF 450 Rally, Tosha Shareina won the race, meaning that Honda enlarged its record in this competition with 9 victories out of 11.
For the last stage, riders did a 305 km liaison and 258 km of Special Stage between the cities of Belén and Salta. The margin to recover was short on a fast day of gravel and sand tracks. In the end, the penalties handed down to several riders for exceeding the speed limit in the special made the organization recalculate the results. Schareina, Brabec, Quintanilla, Branch and Dumontier got two minute penalties upon arrival at the bivouac. Price, Benavides and Docherty got 6 minute penalties.
In the overall standings, besides Brabec’s third place Van Beveren finished 5th, Pablo Quintanilla 6 th and José Ignacio Cornejo 7th place.
After the Desafio Ruta 40 YPF in Argentina there is one more stop to go at the World Rally-Raid Championship W2RC: the Morocco Rally will close the season between 13 and 18 of October. It will be a decisive moment for the dispute of the riders and manufacturers titles and Monster Energy Honda Team will certainly play an important role.