Luciano Benavides (KTM) experienced the pinnacle of his career after winning the “Dakar“ rally after an extremely dramatic ending in the last stage of the race. The Argentine turned the battle for first place in the closing kilometers and grabbed the victory by a minimal margin, reports sportal.bg. Before the start of the final stage of 105 racing kilometers in Yanbu, Benavides was 3:20 minutes behind the leader Ricky Brabec (Honda), who seemed on his way to a sure success. However, in the last 20 kilometers, the American made a navigation error and lost nearly four minutes, which turned out to be decisive.
In the stage, Benavides finished second with a time of 49:03 minutes, while Brabec finished 3:22 behind him. Thus, after a total of 4,748 kilometers of racing in the deserts of Saudi Arabia, the two were separated by just two seconds in the general classification, and the victory went to the Argentine, who recorded three stage victories.
This is Benavides' first triumph in the “Dakar“ rally and his first podium finish in his tenth participation in the legendary race. Third place in the final classification went to Tosha Shareina (Honda), who finished 25:12 minutes behind.
The victory in the last stage went to Edgar Canet (KTM), who recorded his third stage victory in this year's edition, after being fastest in both the prologue and the first actual stage. However, the Spaniard remained far behind in the general classification, more than 12 hours behind the winner.