race where being first out of the gate is more of a hindrance than a help ( due to navigation being trickier ). With a nearly seven-minute lead on Honda ’ s Pablo Quintanilla , Sunderland needed to not let Quintanilla or KTM ’ s Mattias Walkner finish too far ahead of him to ensure victory . When the dust settled in Jeddah , Sunderland ’ s 8th place on the final stage , just 3 minutes and 25 seconds behind stage 12 winner Pablo Quintanilla was more than enough to cement the Brit ’ s second Dakar victory and the firstever Dakar win for the GasGas brand . “ That 10-minute period waiting at the end of the final stage to see if I ’ d won felt like a lifetime ,” Sunderland said . “ But this feeling , knowing I ’ ve won a second Dakar , will stay in my memory forever . This win feels better than the first as this victory was anything but easy . The times were so close this year and there was no time to let off the gas , it was a really close race , right to the end . All of the hard work , the sacrifices , and everything that the GASGAS team has done for me makes it all worthwhile .”
Ex-MotoGP racer Danilo
Petrucci made history by winning stage 5
PROVISIONAL DAKAR 2022 TOP TEN
Quintanilla took 2nd
1 . Sam Sunderland - Gasgas Factory Racing - 38H 47 ’ 30 ’’’
2 . Pablo Quintanilla - Monster Energy Honda - 38H 50 ’ 57 ’’
3 . Matthias Walkner - Red Bull KTM Factory Racing - 38H 54 ’ 17 ’’
4 . Adrien Van Beveren - Monster Energy Yamaha Rally Team - 39H 06 ’ 11 ’’ 5 . Joan Barreda Bort - Monster Energy
Honda - 39H 13 ’ 12 ’’ 6 . Jose Ignacio Cornejo Florimo - Monster
Energy Honda- 39H 25 ’ 36 ’’ 7 . Ricky Brabec - Monster Energy Honda -
39H 33 ’ 34 ’’ 8 . Andrew Short - Monster Energy Yamaha
Rally Team - 39H 33 ’ 38 ’’ 9 . Mason Klein - Bas World KTM Racing -
39H 36 ’ 37 ’’ 10 . Toby Price - Red Bull KTM Factory
Racing - 39H 36 ’ 50 ’’
44 KIWI RIDER