Pic: ASO DPPI
the condition that they were able to slalom between the
stones!
Beaten right at the finish on stage 3, Brabec reacted like
a champion on the route to Moquegua, handing out a ver-
itable lesson to his rivals.
At a faster pace than the rest all along the 351 km of
the stage, the American produced a master stroke to bring
the second stage victory of his career on the Dakar and
take the lead in the general standings. The trio of official
KTMs limited the damage with Walkner, Price and Sam
Sunderland finishing in that order behind the winner,
while Quintanilla and de Soultrait crawled to the finish
more than 20 minutes later.
“I needed it. Yesterday was tough on me and I lost a lot
of time,” smiled Brabec.
“Today I really, really needed to push with the mara-
thon night and motocross start tomorrow. It kind of helps
me because tomorrow I can kind of just hang back and
have the stage under my control and finish where I want.
With the motocross start it makes it easy to manage.”
The riders of the Dakar fully deserved their rest day,
upon completion of the 5th stage, which was made up of
the longest and most varied timed sections on the rally.
The start took place in Tacna, the furthest point from
Lima that the riders reached this year. They started the
journey back to the Peruvian capital by crossing a long
zone of fesh-fesh before tackling the first tracks of the day,
winding through canyons, much to the delight of photog-
raphers and power slide enthusiasts. The long first sec-
tion ended in the dunes of Ilo, where the bikes experi-
enced a double dose of sand.
After a discrete start to the rally, Sunderland reminded
everyone of the reasons why he won the Dakar in 2017.
The official KTM rider managed to extricate himself from
a closely fought battle at the front of the stage to pick up
his first victory of the year and close in to less than one
minute from Brabec in the general standings.
“It was a mass start day and there was not much to win
or lose,” explained Sunderland. He went onto explain why
he’d lost so much time after stopping to help a fellow rid-
er. Such is the nature of the Dakar.
“I stopped with him (Paulo Goncalvez). After that, I
stopped for a long time with him, maybe ten minutes, I’m
not sure … Then I was back with all the other guys in the
dust … I didn’t have any reference of how much time I was
losing, so I was thinking that my race was going downhill.”
Gonçalves (Monster Energy Honda), who started the
Dakar enthusiastically, after having doubted he would
take part following an operation on his spleen several
weeks before the rally, was sixth in the general standings
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