2018 Dakar Rally Stage Two Results
Cycle News Staff | January 7, 2018
2018 Dakar Rally Stage Two Results – The first two stages of the Dakar Rally are in the books and Monster Energy Honda’s Joan Barreda has taken an early lead after taking it away from stage one winner Sam Sunderland, the defending champ. Barreda won stage two, which was the 20th stage victory of his career at Dakar. Barreda started today’s stage in fourth but after 279 kilometres of challenging navigation and sand dunes–95 percent of the distance against the clock–Barreda, on the CRF450 Rally, surged ahead and took the win over sand specialist Adrien Van Beveren (Yamaha) and Mathias Walker (KTM).
2018 Dakar Rally Stage Two Results
Sunderland (KTM) was seventh.
Barreda now enjoys a 2’54” lead over Van Beveren, followed closely by Adrien Walkner (KTM) and Sunderland.
“[It was] a hard, tough stage with quite a confusing part at the beginning where we had to keep our concentration,” said Barreda. “I jumped a dune hard and I really felt that in my hand over the next few kilometres. The final part was very fast and I was able to pick up quite a bit of space and in the end it turned out well. Tomorrow we have to open the track and everything changes again, but we always knew that it would be that way and we just have to keep on as best we can.”
2018 Dakar Rally Stage Two Results
American Ricky Brabec is holding his own. The Monster Energy Honda Team rider finished 11th in the first stage and 12th in the second stage. He currently maintains 11th overall, one spot behind Australian Toby Price (KTM).
“It was very good today,” Brabec said after stage two. “We had some great dunes, but the big difference is that we had the cars ahead of us. I kept finding people circling around, lost, looking for the right track, but for me it was a good day, and I think that it was a fine result for the team too. We arrived at the bivouac well and I saw that Joan had won and is now leader, so congratulations to him. We will try to continue like this until the end.”
2018 Dakar Rally Stage Two Results
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