Cycle News Staff | January 4, 2017
2017 Dakar Rally Results Day Three: Honda’s Joan Barreda tore it up today in the third stage of the Dakar Rally, finishing the day more than 12 minutes ahead of his nearest rival and launching to the top of the leaderboard in the overall standings.
2017 Dakar Rally Results Day Three
The third stage was the most technical so far and required more navigation than the previous two days.
Barreda’s teammate Paulo Goncalves started off fast but Barreda came on strong as the day wore on and finished 12 minutes and 29 seconds ahead of the day’s runner-up, Red Bull KTM’s Sam Sunderland. Husqvarna’s Pierre-Alexandre Renet finished another three minutes behind Sunderland in third. Renet’s teammate was fourth on the day, while Goncalves slipped back to fifth before it was all over.
Toby Price, the overall leader at the start of the day, was ninth, just head of American Ricky Brabec.
Barreda now heads the field by a hefty 10 minutes and 20 seconds over second-place Sunderland and 13’42 over third place Gonclaves. Price slipped to fifth overall and now chases leader Barreda by 16’19 seconds. Brabec is ninth overall, a little over 23 minutes behind his Monster Energy Honda teammate Barreda.
“Today was a pretty long day with difficult riding and navigation,” said Barreda. “The first forty or fifty kilometres were tough and I came out opening the track on that part. I lost a bit of time looking for a waypoint, but I was able to continue and get through to the end without any problems. The important thing is that everything is fine for the stage tomorrow, which is only the fourth of this long and difficult rally.
2017 Dakar Rally Results Day Three
“Today was one of the days that we picked and we prepared for it from yesterday to attack,” Barreda added. “I was lucky and I did a good job. It was a really tough stage but I kept my focus during all the stage, so I am really happy with the work. It’s still too early to talk about winning. There are still seven thousand five hundred kilometres to go. I’m not sure. This situation, this year is different than other years, so, for sure, we just need to keep focused and to keep riding like this”.
Brabec said, “Stage three was technical for everyone. Today I made a few mistakes. I was going a bit too fast in the dust and I came across a tree but at that speed I had to jump it. Luckily my front wheel and skid plate made it over just in time. I hit the other side with the wheel and blew the fender right off the bike. I don’t know exactly what went wrong with the bike but shortly after I pulled over. Svitko [Svitko] was coming right behind me but he crashed. I turned around and went backwards for him. By the time I got there he was getting up, so I parked the bike and repaired it and tried to make it to the finish.”
2017 Dakar Rally Results Day Three
Price had a difficult day with navigation. “The first part of the road-book was definitely tricky and I think we all got a little bit out of whack there and a little bit lost,” Price said. “We had to climb our way back from there. All in all, we got through that part not so bad and then we led the last little bit. Down the end here to start the next part of the special, due to the liaison time, I had to sit at the end of the first portion for too long waiting for a sticker for the time card. I lost out on a bit of time there and I didn’t quite start my special on the second part straight away. Something needs to happen there, because we didn’t get enough time to get through that part of the liaison section. Just through the end there wasn’t too bad; nice, smooth and fast-paced. I made a little mistake their near the end. It looked like the bunting had all tapered off down the side to get into the river bed and you couldn’t quite catch the finish there. It made it a little bit difficult. I think the top three or four of us all did the same things, so… I don’t know, perhaps there was an issue there. Other than that, we’re here for another day and I can’t complain. We definitely lost a bit of time today; but there’s still a long way to go – we’re only three days in. Give it time and we’ll see how we go. We’re definitely going to work our way back. I won last year by almost forty minutes so surely we can try and do something there – it should be good. It’s the way it is – you’re never going to lead the thing from start to finish. You’re always going to have a bad day here and there, so we’ll just wait and see. Hopefully my bad day is over and done with now and the rest of the days will be good.”
“It was definitely a day for navigation on the first part,” Sunderland said. “It was tricky. I tried to take my time and find the good way, but really I was searching a lot. I found Toby after twenty kilometres coming toward me and he left maybe nine minutes before me. It was tricky, you know; we tried to take time and find the way, but when you can’t find the way, you can’t find the way. It was not because we were rushing or because we were riding too much, too fast. It was really difficult. The second part went a lot better and I was pretty happy with that. It happens a lot with the start position. Obviously, that helps. But I think he did pretty good through the tricky navigation. We lost a fair bit of time, but there’s a long way still, you know; it’s day three. We have many days to come”.
Racing continues tomorrow, as the riders will climb to higher elevations, around 9000 feet, which they will have to deal with for the next six days. They will also be challenged with more intense navigation and vast sand dunes.
2017 Dakar Rally Results Day Three
STAGE 3 RESULTS
OVERALL RESULTS AFTER DAY 3
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