Ricky Brabec Fights Back
Desafio Ruta 40Dakar winner Ricky Brabec was the fastest Monster Energy Honda Team rider on the third day and the second stage from the Desafio Ruta YPF in Argentina.
The american finished the 265 km of Special Stage between the cities of La Rioja and Belén in third place, 7’39 seconds behind another Honda CRF 450 Rally – the one from Tosha Schareina, who remains in the leadership of the race. José Ignacio Cornejo was 5th today and was followed by teammates Adrien Van Beveren (6th) and Pablo Quintanilla (8th).
The first part of today’s stage was really fast with gravel tracks and then navigation was more important in the second part with demanding terrains: chott, fesh-fesh, dunes and sand. It was a truly argentinian classic, demanding a lot from riders and machines, testing their shape and reliability.
In the overall standings, Van Beveren remains in third place (13’20 gap), Brabec goes up to the 5th place, Quintanilla keeps the 6th place and Cornejo jumps one position to 7’th place.
Tomorrow the race will repeat the circuit scheme with start and arrival in Belén. There will be 197 km of liaison and 265 km of Special Stage. This third stage will mix once again gravel, sand tracks and dunes.
“This was a hard day for the team and things went well. We expected navigation to be more demanding, but it was not so much. Tomorrow we are waiting for a more challenging stage where navigation can play a central role. Ricky lost time yesterday and recovered some positions today. Adrien lost some time today due to a navigation mistake but he is still fighting for the lead. Nacho was going fast but faced some technical issues at the end of the stage. Pablo was second at the beginning of the stage but then did not feel so comfortable at the end of the stage.”
“Stage 2 was good, so with three days left we will see what we can do. After this third place I will be risking everything I have. I know I’m just further off the overall classification now, so I’m not quite sure what to do at this point. One thing is sure, the next few days we will be just riding around.”
“This was a good stage for me, I was feeling really competitive, very comfortable with the bike. Then in the last part of the stage I had to slow a little bit because of the rear of the bike. Safety always comes first so I had to make sure I reached the end of the special section. The outcome was not bad, so I’m determined to continue to fight and do my best.”
“This was a hard day, I tried to save the tires at the beginning. The rhythm was not high for that reason, then luckily there was sand and I continued to push. I made a mistake, confused a note from the road-book and went really bad for five or six kilometers. Then I came back and pushed on the dunes. Overall it is not so bad, I have a good position to push tomorrow."
“Well this was not a good day since I was quite limited with a mechanical problem. I had to slow down along the stage, so now we just want to find what is going on and fix it. Tomorrow we will start again to return to the race rhythm and try to climb in the overall standings.”
PROVISIONAL STANDINGS AFTER STAGE 2
Pos. | Rider | Num | Nation | Team | Time/Gap |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | SCHAREINA Tosha | 68 | SPA | Honda Team | 07:22:40 |
2 | BENAVIDES Luciano | 77 | ARG | Husqvarna Factory Racing | 07:27:23 |
3 | VAN BEVEREN Adrien | 42 | FRA | Monster Energy Honda Team | 07:36:00 |
4 | EVAN BRANCH Ross | 16 | BWA | Hero Motorsports Team Rally | 07:37:18 |
5 | BRABEC Ricky | 2 | USA | Monster Energy Honda Team | 07:42:51 |
6 | QUINTANILLA Pablo | 7 | CHI | Monster Energy Honda Team | 07:43:15 |
7 | CORNEJO José Ignacio | 11 | CHI | Monster Energy Honda Team | 07:43:32 |
8 | BÜHLER Sebastian | 110 | GER | Bühler Racing Team | 07:48:17 |
9 | SUNDERLAND Sam | 3 | GBR | Gas Gas Factory Team | 07:48:25 |
10 | COX Bradley | 49 | RSA | BAS DAKAR KTM RACING TEAM | 07:58:07 |
