Stage victory for Joan Barreda, who begins his comeback

Joan Barreda has done what he does best.

Nip.

Attack.

The Honda rider approached the first dune cords of this Dakar with the conviction that this Monday he began his comeback in the motorcycle category.

It wasn't a bad day.

After a bad first stage, marked by complex navigation - or by the bad indications of the road book, according to the majority of the victims, who were many -, he came out 17th: a good position to speed up decision-making, given the traces that one is ahead.

In addition, the day will no longer end, as planned, in a marathon stage, which allowed him to risk a little more, knowing that he would have mechanical help at the end of the special, of 339 km.

The heavy rains of the preceding days have caused serious flooding at the Al Artawiyah bivouac, forcing the organization to change its plans as the bivouac is unusable.

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As it was, Barreda flew.

And he cut 5m33s to the leader, Sam Sunderland (GasGas), who reached the goal with the second fastest time.

It's not a lot after losing 38 minutes the day before.

But it is a good start.

The Dakar caravan enters the heart of Saudi Arabia and does so with a few casualties and many lost illusions despite being alone in the second stage of competition.

It was not a good day, for example, for Danilo Petrucci, the KTM rider in the MotoGP World Championship.

After a good start this Sunday, when he finished 13th, the Italian saw a mechanical problem put him out of the race at the first change.

Unable to repair his machine, the boy, who was making his Dakar debut, asked to be evacuated.

He leaves with more pain than glory.

Loeb wins in cars

In the car category, Sébastien Loeb scored his first victory of this edition (it is the first in the history of Prodrive in the Dakar) in a stage in which he beat Qatari Nasser Al-Attiyah (Toyota), leader and favorite to the title, which was second.

The Frenchman, eight times world rally champion, is reunited with victory in this race, something he had not achieved since 2019, when the Rally was still being run in South America.

Despite the fact that hopes of a comeback are in vain after the navigation error that cost him two hours the day before, Carlos Sainz does pursue the stage victory in this Dakar.

For the moment, this Monday he settled for getting on the final podium by finishing with the third best time of the day, 5m52s behind Loeb.

Dakar Rally classifications.

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