Dakar 2021 - Bikes - The fate of Winners & Losers!

Sam Sunderland turning around after realising he has lost his way

Kevin Benavides of Argentina seals the 2021 Dakar title on his Honda 450 Rally bike at the end of the final stage on the outskirts of the city of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. He put up an commendable feat of perseverance and consistency which paid off by charting upto the tops of the penultimate stage which culminated at Yanbu. He is one of the competitor from the Monster Energy Honda Rally Team.

Ricky Brabec from USA, another fellow Honda rider and 2020 title winner finished of in second place just a bit of shy at around 5 minutes to his winning mate. Being the defending champion, opening stages right from the start of the 2-week rally wasn't any easy deal. Opening the stages upfront of all the competition, ahead of all classes meant no trail to follow in case of a navigational discrepancy, that makes him some extra special. He won the stage, shaving off nearly 2 minutes 14 seconds from the rally winner and that too after opening final stage which was relatively shorter (compared to the average stage running length this year) at around 200kms from start to finish. Doing at an excessive of 91 kph, the American sealed his second spot with relative ease.

Epic cornering by Xavier de Soultrait

Sam Sunderland from Great Britain who was actually closer to the rally leader slipped off the 2nd spot (from stage 11) after losing more than 13 minutes after he lost his way, he had to settle for a third place by the end of the stage. He rode a KTM 450 Rally bike for the Redbull KTM Factory team.

The rally witnessed a lot of premature closing of rally for a few riders, notably the official riders of many manufacturers brand, such as CS Santosh of Hero Motocorp, Toby Price of KTM, Xavier de Soultrait on a Husqvarna who had to pull out of the rally due injuries after crashing at rally speeds.

Here's the overall tally of the top 10 riders of Dakar 2021.

Pos	Bib	Crew	Brand	Time	Gap	Penalty
1	047	K. BENAVIDES	HONDA	47:18:14	00:00:00	00:02:00
2	001	R. BRABEC	HONDA	47:23:10	00:04:56	00:00:00
3	005	S. SUNDERLAND	KTM	47:34:11	00:15:57	00:00:00
4	021	D. SANDERS	KTM	47:57:06	00:38:52	00:07:00
5	009	S. HOWES	KTM	48:10:47	00:52:33	00:06:00
6	015	L. SANTOLINO	SHERCO FACTORY	48:16:44	00:58:30	00:00:00
7	002	P. QUINTANILLA	HUSQVARNA	48:34:53	01:16:39	00:00:00
8	011	S. SVITKO	KTM	49:01:21	01:43:07	00:00:00
9	031	M. MICHEK	KTM	49:40:51	02:22:37	00:03:00
10	052	M. WALKNER	KTM	49:50:26	02:32:12	00:02:00

 

Dakar second timer Harith Noah of Sherco TVS racing finished at a commendable 20th place overall despite with his share of fall.