Despite suffering a major time penalty after Stage 4 of the 2017 Dakar Rally, Monster Energy Honda’s Ricky Brabec has refused to back down and coast to the finish when there are still stages to be won, and the American’s perseverance paid off with his first career Dakar Rally stage win today.
In a Dakar that has not yet seen a repeat stage winner in the motorcycle class, Brabec became the sixth man to win a stage [Stage 6 was canceled due to inclement weather] as he flew to the win. Heavy rain forced race organizers to shorten the stage, which was originally supposed to feature 322 kilometers of timed special. Instead, the route from La Paz to Uyuni in Bolivia featured just 160 kilometers of timed special. Brabec won the stage with a time of 2 hours, 2 minutes and 5 seconds. Today was the first part of the marathon stage; after the finish, all vehicles were impounded, and only the riders can make repairs.
“I’ve won a stage at the Dakar–that’s awesome,” Brabec said. “I wanted to do better than last week. Last week was rough for me and rough for the team with our penalty. As a whole team we made a mistake, but I think we still have a good chance with just five days left of racing. A lot can happen. I feel good. Joan feels good and looks good. All of our bikes are working well, so we’ll see what the next few days have to offer. I don’t know if I won –are you sure? Well, that’s awesome if I won. That would be so sweet, I’ll be so happy with myself. I don’t know; I don’t have any words to say because I’ve never won a stage before. I’ve won a stage at the Dakar–that’s awesome. The first day I was close and the second day I had a chance, but I chose to hold back a little bit, just because I knew that the third day was going to have a lot of tricky navigation. My best result is twentieth or something, so my goal is to break into the top ten. I don’t really want to be outside the top 10; my ultimate goal was to come here, do well and get a top five, but we’ll see what happens.”
Paulo Goncalves made it a Monster Energy Honda one-two finish by coming in 1 minute and 44 seconds behind Brabec.
“Today the stage worked out quite well,” Goncalves said. “I started out behind Sunderland and pushed hard in the beginning without making any navigation mistakes. I did it well, and I caught him up at kilometer 60. We rode together at a good pace. Today is the first day of the marathon, and I have the bike ready for tomorrow without having to touch anything. This proves that the HRC engineers are doing an excellent job. We will keep battling on to try and make up the one hour sanction that we received. There is still a long way to go.”
Riding with Goncalves allowed Red Bull KTM’s Sam Sunderland to miminize damage to his overall rally lead, and in fact the Brit extended that lead to over 17 minutes on second-place man Pablo Quintanilla, who finished almost 10 minutes off Brabec’s time and wound up ninth in the stage.
“I’m happy,” Sunderland said. “It was a lot harder a stage than we were expecting–there was a lot of navigation. Yesterday, when we saw the stage had been cut to 174 kilometers, I was pretty happy because I had to open. It was really tricky, really difficult with a lot of vegetation–you couldn’t see where the tracks were. It was really physical riding and then towards the end there we had a lot of mud, which always makes things interesting. All in all, it was okay. I think, sure, I lost some time today because it was a sandy stage and the guys from the back can see the tracks cleanly. I think where I made the mistakes, they should be able to find their way pretty well, but I don’t think anybody has arrived yet, which is a good sign. We’ll just keep ticking along. The bike’s working well, the boys did a good job yesterday. I’m really happy with everything on the bike. It’s the first stage of the marathon day, and the tires are good, so we’ll just keep ticking along. So far so good.”
The rally leaves Bolivia tomorrow and re-enters Argentina. The stage concludes in Salta.
2017 Dakar Rally
La Paz, Bolivia, to Uyuni, Bolivia
Results: January 9, 2017 (Stage 7 of 12)
Stage 7
1. Ricky Brabec (USA)-Monster Energy Honda/2 hours, 2 minutes, 5 seconds
2. Paulo Goncalves (POR)-Monster Energy Honda/+00:01:44
3. Sam Sunderland (GBR)-Red Bull KTM/+00:04:43
4. Joan Barreda (ESP)-Monster Energy Honda/+00:06:51
5. Xavier De Soultrait (FRA)-Viltais Racing Team HFP/+00:07:10
6. Michael Metge (FRA)-Moster Energy Honda/+00:08:21
7. Todd Smith (AUS)-Duust Rally Team KTM/+00:09:39
8. Matthias Walkner (AUT)-Red Bull KTM/+00:09:59
9. Pablo Quintanilla (CHI)-Rockstar Energy Husqvarna/+00:10:28
10. Walter Nosiglia (BOL)-MEC Team Nosiglia Honda/+00:10:39
2017 Dakar Rally Overall Standings (after 7 of 12 stages)
1. Sam Sunderland (GBR)-Red Bull KTM/17 hours, 28 minutes, 53 seconds
2. Pablo Quintanilla (CHI)-Rockstar Energy Husqvarna/+00:17:45
3. Adrien Van Beveren (FRA)-Yamalube Yamaha/+00:22:16
4. Gerard Farres (ESP)-Himoinsa Team KTM/+00:28:36
5. Matthias Walkner (AUT)-Red Bull KTM/+00:34:17
6. Xavier De Soultrait (FRA)-Viltais Racing Team HFP Yamaha/+00:38:33
7. Pela Renet (FRA)-Rockstar Energy Husqvarna/+01:02:37
8. Paulo Goncalves (POR)-Monster Energy Honda/+01:05:22
9. Joan Barreda (ESP)-Monster Energy Honda/+01:14:47
10. Martin Duplessis (ARG)-Asistencia Med KTM/+01:15:36
14. Ricky Brabec (USA)-Monster Energy Honda/+01:44:44
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