World News – AU – Dakar 2021: Toby Price takes the lead, Ricky Brabec fights

Honda rider Brabec opened the road on the 277 km stretch from Jeddah to Bisha after his victory on the short prologue stage on Saturday, but hit the navigation trouble almost immediately when he ran more than 13 minutes fell in the first 37 km

After that it didn’t get any better for the American rider who finished the stage as 24th finished after falling on KTM rival Price for 18 minutes and 32 seconds

In ninth place in the prologue, Price took the lead from Xavier de Soultrait at 135 km and finished the stage 31 seconds ahead of Honda’s Kevin Benavides, which gave him a narrow 23-second lead in the overall standings

De Soultrait, who switched from Yamaha to KTM’s sister brand Husqvarna for the 2021 edition, led the first 92 km through the first three waypoints, but could not keep up this pace and was sixth at the finish, 4:35 minutes later

The last place on the podium went to Matthias Walkner from KTM, just one second behind Benavides (1: 12 minutes behind Price in total), while Sam Sunderland had three KTM riders in the top 4, 2: 03 minutes behind (4 : 11 minutes in total) managed

Lorenzo Santolino was an impressive fifth for Sherco while Yamaha’s best onstage finisher was Franco Caimi in seventh place, despite being sixth overall ahead of de Soultrait

In addition to Brabec, Joan Barreda (Honda) and Pablo Quintanilla (Husqvarna) had a bad start to their campaigns and also lost each other early in the Special

In the Quads category, Frenchman Alexandre Giroud won the opening phase with a 2: 52-minute lead over Giovanni Enrico to gain a total of 3: 32-minute lead

Dakar 2021