2022 Dakar Stage 10: Knock-out for Big Kev

Kevin Benavides (aka “Big Kev”) has seen his Dakar hopes crash and burn. No, don’t worry, the KTM factory rider didn’t crash himself—but his hopes of winning this year’s race went up in a big smoke cloud, as his engine self-destructed. He looked a cinch for a top-five position, and maybe a podium spot, but now, he’s out of the competition, as far as final placement goes.

Sin palabras para explicar la decepción de ver escaparse las posibilidades de pelear por defender el #1. A falta de 3 etapas estaba a 10 min entre 6 pilotos, el juego estaba abierto 😭.
Para mi hoy se acabaron esas ilusiones. pic.twitter.com/T4ckrJGBO5

— Kevin Benavides (@kmbenavides) January 12, 2022

Still, under Dakar’s new rules, Benavides is now allowed to continue racing—he just has a massive time penalty, and cannot feasibly overcome that, at this point in the event.

This new rule is supposedly a concession to the FIM, allowing Dakar riders to count their stage wins in the FIM Cross Country Rallies series. Before, if you didn’t finish a stage, you were gone from Dakar. Now, you can at least plug away at earning some more points for the series.

It’s got to hurt—Benavides was the overall winner last year, and now he’s a side note. Still, Big Kev’s bad luck was good fortune for others. Toby Price, probably the most talented rider still in this year’s race, grabbed the stage win for the KTM factory team. Luciano Benavides (Kevin’s younger brother) was second, on his Husqvarna. Third went to Adrien Van Beveren (Yamaha). That was good enough to slide Van Beveren back into the top overall slot.

We’ve told you before that Van Beveren’s strong point is navigation. In his post-race interview, he credited this skill for his results today.

“Like every day I focused heavily on my roadbook and rode the stage with a strong pace throughout. Navigation wasn’t easy today, especially with so many canyons in places, but I did a really good job, I think. I did struggle to find a couple of waypoints but otherwise it was another great stage for me,” he said.

“I went as fast as I could near the end and ended up in a good spot on the stage, and also in the overall. Tomorrow is a big day and opening will be difficult, but I’m ready for the challenge.”

What’s next?

Tomorrow (Stage 11) is the last full stage of racing, with a 346-km special. Stage 12 has only a short special (164 km) but a looooooooong liaison, so the day is 680 km total.

Van Beveren will have a hard time staying at the front tomorrow, and he’ll have a hard time gaining back time lost on Stage 12 (which has traditionally been a processional, but doesn’t seem to be so this year). To his further disadvantage, Van Beveren’s headed into the dunes tomorrow. Starting the day in third (due to his finish today), he’ll be forced to spend a lot of time opening the track for other riders, who can avoid all sorts of error by following his wheeltracks. Van Beveren’s navigation skills are most useful when his direct competition isn’t following immediately behind him, and that will be the case tomorrow.

Of course, there’s always the other two wild cards of breakdowns and crashes. As it stands right now, any of the top five could prevail at this point with luck and cunning, but no amount of tactical planning can survive a gearbox grenading. However: It seems likely the winner will be one of the riders in second through fifth place (Joan Barreda, Pablo Quintanilla, Matthias Walkner, Sam Sunderland). And out of those four, Walkner and Sunderland would be the favourites, due to their clever, careful riding. They’re both past champions as well.

2022 DAKAR STAGE 10 TOP 10

2022 DAKAR TOP 10 AFTER STAGE 10