Summarize

Tuesday’s bike race delivered an intriguing battle between two men who had never won a Dakar stage before as Spanish Sherco rider Lorenzo Santolino fended South African, Bradley Cox off to win a memorable stage. Behind them, overall leader Australian Daniel Sanders haemorrhaged time on his KTM to allow fourth, fifth and third on the day, Skyler Howes, Ross Branch and Ricky Brabec to dramatically close his lead in second, third and fourth overall.

With severe unseasonal storms wreaking havoc towards the end of Tuesday’s day 5 route between Bisha and Al Henakiyah, Stage 3 was shortened to 327 km versus the original 496 km, albeit off the original start times. Which left a route of mainly dirt tracks with a little gravel and a touch of sand thrown in.

Overall leader Australian Daniel Sanders’ KTM led early on, but he was soon gobbled up by Santolino on his Sherco and World Rally 2 Champion Cox on his Rally GP debut aboard his BAS World KTM. Cox was ahead of Santolino by the end of the next sector, with Botswana’s World Rally Raid Champion Branch third on his Hero Moto ahead of Spaniard Tosha Schareina’s Honda Portuguese rider Rui Goncalves’ Sherco and Californian Brabec’s Honda.

Sanders lost five minutes in the rocky section around the 100 km mark and another two in the next sandy part. Behind Cox and Santolino, Schareina, Branch and Brabec closed in on Sanders overall lead in their own battle in both the day and overall standings, with KTM men Luciano Benavides and Stefan Svitko in the mix. In Rally 2 meanwhile, South African Michael Docherty’s KTM led through first half before slipping behind Edgar Canet and Tobias Ebster’s similar machines.

Then came the long penultimate sector, where Cox and Santolino fought it out to the line, as both of them chased their first Dakar stage victory.  It was the Spaniard who beat the young South African to the line by all of 36 seconds in the end. Four minutes behind Santolino, Ricky Brabec, Skyler Howes and Ross Branch came in within 14 seconds of one another, with Benavides and Svitko next as Canet took Rally 2 from Ebster and Docherty. 

Behind them, in spite of scoring four bonus minutes, overall leader Daniel Sanders lost over fourteen minutes to the leader, while his pursuers, Howes and Branch closed their deficit down to just on two minutes in second and third, with Brabec a similar gap further back. Bradley Cox’s epic ride sees him up to ninth overall and day winner Santolino 11th ahead of Rally 2 top three Canet, Docherty and Ebster South Africans, Aaron Mare was provisionally 25th at Al Henakiyah, while Dwain Barnard was running 68th and Willem Avenant 108th at the time of writing.

The Dakar bike race certainly is alive and well as it heads into Wednesday’s 415 km first half of the no overnight service Stage described as ‘a hell of a day’ through the canyons to Al Ula.