The prologue gave us a taste of what the 2024 Dakar could offer, but the real business starts today, with Stage 1 ready to offer a tough challenge right off the bat.
BIKES
The starting positions of the first ten riders were chosen by the first ten finishers of yesterday’s prologue. Mason Klein, who finished in P10 yesterday, was the first to set off in Stage 1.
It was not the ideal start for Luciano Benavides, whose tracking system broke down. Of course, that meant he was nowhere to be seen compared to other riders, but he would receive a new one soon. He reappeared on the radar 170 km into the stage. He was in P10, 8 minutes behind Ross Branch, who was leading the stage.
At km 82, Joaquim Rodrigues crashed. Luckily, he was conscious, but it seemed he had broken something. Therefore, he was airlifted to the AlUla Hospital. Right after the incident, Joan Barreda and Sebastian Bühler stopped to check on his condition and help him. They will be credited for the time lost at the finish line.
Just past the halfway point, Ross Branch led the race with Tosha Schareina in second, 1′ 45″ behind, and Quintanilla third, separated by 2′ 40″.
After winning the prologue, Tosha Schareina seemed to be one of the contenders for the win of this year’s Dakar. However, the latter fell 240 km into the stage and hurt his arm. Ross Branch stopped to help him. The prologue winner had to quit the race after his crash.
Mason Klein was the first to finish Stage 1, having led the whole day from start to finish. Meanwhile, Michael Docherty fell at km 323 hurting his hip, and was airlifted to the Medina Hospital.
Ricky Brabec finished the stage in P1, ahead of Klein and Cornejo. However, Ross Branch, who had stopped to help Tosha, still needed to see how much time would be deducted from his final result. In the end, after deducting the lost time to help his fellow biker, Branch was declared the Stage 1 winner, 10′ 54″ ahead of Brabec. Klein still kept a podium position (3rd).
QUADS
At km 38, the top four were separated by only 44 seconds, with Marcelo Medeiros leading ahead of Francisco Moreno Flores, Manuel Andújar, and Alexandre Giroud.
At the second checkpoint, Medeiros was still ahead, with an increased gap of more than a minute over Andújar. The latter later decreased the gap to 35 seconds to the leader at km 127.
318 km into the stage, Medeiros was still unstoppable and increased his lead to 4′ 36″ over Andújar.
In the end, Medeiros clinched his ninth career Dakar stage win after completely dominating the day. Juraj Varga finished second, and Laisvydas Kancius completed the podium.
CARS
The start of the car race was delayed since a spectator was injured. The latter was brought to the nearest hospital.
Mattias Ekström started off strong in the car category, leading by 1′ 16″ at km 87. Meanwhile, both Loeb and Al Attiyah were losing ground.
Ekström was still the leader at km 225, but Carlos Sainz was closing in quickly. The Spaniard’s gap to the leader decreased from 2′ 42″ to 53 seconds. Sainz later took the lead as Ekström seemed to have a problem, maybe a flat tire. Ekström also lost second place to Guillaume de Mevius, who was 43 seconds behind Sainz.
It was not looking good for Loeb and Alattiyah, respectively 18 and 21 minutes behind the leader. Meanwhile, things kept getting worse for Ekström, as he lost third place to the rookie Guy Botterill – who was incredibly just 6 minutes behind the veteran Sainz -.
A great performance by Guillaume de Mevius meant he clinched his first stage win in the Dakar. He outpaced Sainz by 1′ 44″. The podium was completed by Giniel de Villiers.