After winning yesterday and the eighth stage, today it was up to Luciano Benavides to start at the front and just as he started… he finished! The KTM rider finished as the winner on a day that he thought would be easy, something that didn’t materialize, and he believes that this year’s edition has been “delivered”… from the start.
Analyzing his day, Benavides began by talking about the difficulties that were confirmed, even though he had thought beforehand that everything would be more… accessible: ‘Honestly, it was super hard to open. There were many points with tricky navigation. It wasn’t easy but I’m really happy with the rhythm I had opening because today I had to pay extra attention to the notes. It as a tough one, but I’m really happy because I did a good job, opening the stage from the start until the end’.
And he continued his analysis: ‘Yesterday, when I won, I thought that today would normally be an easy stage but on the Dakar it’s never easy. I made some mistakes of course being in front, but it wasn’t too bad. Adrien caught up with me right at the end, probably on the last 8 km’.
In the Argentinian’s opinion, and even though there are still a few stages to go, this year’s edition of the race was practically resolved before the first stage even began, with credit to his teammate:
– To be honest, I feel that this Dakar was decided after the prologue. Daniel won the prologue and then after he played his cards well. I think the 48 hours chrono killed the race a little bit. It’s not ideal to start with a long stage like that. Daniel did an amazing job.
