Benavides wins the Dakar with a broken nose and Barreda loses 19 minutes
The Argentinian Kevin Benavides (Honda) he broke his nose this Thursday after suffering a fall but the accident did not prevent him from winning the fifth stage of the Dakar rally in motorcycles and to be in front of the general.
Benavides had one minute ahead of Chilean Nacho Cornejo, his teammate on the Honda team, and in 1:20 the Australian Toby Price (KTM), while the Spanish Joan Barreda (Honda), with navigation problems, lost 19:11 minutes.
The Argentine rider, who did not achieve a single stage victory in the previous edition of the Dakar, resumes his collection of partial wins despite the incident at km 330, in which he went to the ground and broke his nose. He resumed the race without major problems and ended up winning.
In the general, Benavides reaches the lead with 2:31 minutes of margin over the previous leader, Frenchman Xavier de Soultrait (Husqvarna), sixth in this Thursday's special, 7:55 behind the Argentine.
Joan Barreda falls to ninth place overall, with a loss of 14:02 minutes with respect to the leader. The best Spanish classified is now Lorenzo Santolino (Sherco), at 9:31 from Benavides, after his fourth place in this fifth stage.
Barreda, winner of the fourth stage this Wednesday, opened the track this Thursday in the fifth special heading to Al Qaisumah, and at the first checkpoint I had already lost 17 minutes after deviating from the route before km 74.
The fifth stage, with 457 km of special, is considered one of the most difficult of this 43 edition of the Dakar, not only because of the usual navigation problems, but also the stones and dunes that the route presents.
