Ninth place for Kevin Benavides in the prologue of Dakar 2024. The winner of last year’s edition, who is competing again for Red Bull KTM, arrived after an injury to his tibia and on this opening day was 56 seconds behind the fastest – Tosha Schareina (Monster Energy Honda).
The Argentine rider was pleased with his performance and return to action, stating to the Dakar website: ‘It was a good prologue, I believe. It was short, but with a lot of navigation. The track was also sandy and I started behind, so it was very rough – I was moving a lot on the bike. So I tried to stay very focused, it was a long time without competing for me, it was good to be back. I just tried to have a good pace, be focused on navigation and I think I did a good job. So, I’m happy with this prologue. We’ll see what happens next, but this is just the warm-up for the race‘.
When asked about his physical condition, Benavides replied: ‘Physically, I was fine. There were a lot of left turns, so those turns were a bit more difficult because of my foot. Anyway, it was good‘.
