DAKAR 2020

Adrien Van Beveren leaves after a hard fall

2020 will not be the year of Adrien Van Beveren in the Dakar. The French rider had to abandon the test during the third stage after suffering a high-speed fall during the first part of the special with arrival and departure in Neom. The Frenchman has suffered an injury in the right shoulder whose reach is still unknown but has not lost consciousness at any time, being quickly evacuated by helicopter to the bivouac of Neom.
He has also left the Portuguese Paulo Gonçalves due to the breakage of the engine of his Hero Speedbrain. The veteran Portuguese driver had changed Honda to be the star of the Indian brand, but his first Dakar with them has not ended as planned. Two important dropouts that join Daniel Nosiglia Jager's day yesterday.
Van Beveren started once again among the candidates for victory and as a great trick of Yamaha. It is his fifth Dakar and since his debut in 2016 with a sixth final place he had shown himself as one of the fastest drivers in the world of cross-country, something he endorsed a year later when he finished fourth after fighting the podium until the last day with the Spanish Gerard Farrés, who finally deprived him of it.
However, since then the hardest raid in the world has not finished again, where there are already three consecutive dropouts. In the 2018 edition he left after suffering a very hard fall during the tenth stage, which had begun as the leader of the event, making Yamaha dream of unseating KTM and the French public with which he would be the heir of the emblematic Cyril Despres.
It took months to recover and that is why last 2019 it was taken more calmly. However, it could not end either. Already during the test he had a more discreet performance than expected, being more protagonist for coming to the aid of the Spanish Lorenzo Santolino than for his speed in the race; but little by little it had been placed in the general and faced the penultimate stage in fourth position and with serious options to access the podium.
This time it was not a fall but the engine of his Yamaha, which left him out of the race just one day from the end and again he broke up with his hopes of climbing into the test drawer.
In spite of everything, in this 2020 it was starting again as one of the great favorites to the final victory, and was following the same strategy of the last course: letting the stages go by without risking too much: it had been tenth in the first stage and 14th in the second, placing 13th overall at 13 minutes from the leader, Sam Sunderland, and just ahead of Paulo Gonçalves.
Hence, he had an interesting starting position to try to gain some ground in the third stage, but as soon as he left he lost control of his Yamaha WR450F in a spectacular fall that has been recorded by the helicopter, leaving fired forward and rolling several meters in some images that scare, but luckily they have been left alone in that.

Nacho González, from España