DAKAR 2024
Cornejo achieves the hat-trick of stages and the Dakar 2024 is in a second
The Chilean Nacho Cornejo has achieved his third partial victory in the Dakar 2024, raising his tally in the event to nine to put himself one behind 'Chaleco' López in the fight to be the American with the most stage wins.
A classification in which he has precisely equaled the Argentine Kevin Benavides, with whom he competed in today's special; and the American Ricky Brabec, also protagonist in saving the lead by a single second against Ross Branch.
After the chaos left by the 'Chrono 48 hours', where up to four of the 17 RallyGP drivers who started it abandoned (Skyler Howes, Joan Barreda, Mason Klein and Maciej Giemza), the rest day had served to recharge their batteries before to face the second and final week, which began with a poker of outstanding riders in the general classification, made up of Ross Branch and the Hondas of Ricky Brabec, Adrien Van Beveren and Nacho Cornejo.
The fourth Honda in contention that is still in the race is that of Pablo Quintanilla, who also lost all options in the double stage when he ran out of gas and went out to the seventh stage to vindicate himself. He was doing it by setting the best time in the first two timed points, but at kilometer 112 of the special he had to stop due to mechanical problems on his Honda, losing almost an hour and a half more.
His command was inherited by his compatriot Nacho Cornejo, who from the third waypoint would maintain a beautiful fight in the distance with Kevin Benavides. All this while Adrien Van Beveren opened the track with solvency, so much so that it would take him about 200 kilometers to be caught by Ricky Brabec and Toby Price.
The give and take for the stage victory would continue until the end: the eldest of the Benavides took the lead at the halfway point of the special, but Nacho Cornejo put on the turbo in the final stretch to cover the 483 timed kilometers of the day departing in Riyadh and arriving in Al Duwadimi in 5 hours, 18 minutes and 33 seconds, just 32 seconds ahead of Kevin Benavides.
Third was Luciano Benavides, more than three minutes away, with Ross Branch giving up 6:36 and recovering 50 seconds from Ricky Brabec, who thanks to gaining almost four minutes of bonus time managed to save the overall lead by just one second with respect to the Botswana.
Sixth was Daniel Sanders in another fairly discreet stage, with Rui Gonçalves putting together a great performance to return Sherco to the top positions, ahead of Stefan Svitko. The top 10 was completed by Toby Price and Adrien Van Beveren, who once the bonuses for opening the track were compensated, gave up eleven and twelve minutes, respectively.
Swinxy
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