Stage 4 was a 813 KM route from Wadi Ad-Dawasir to Riyadh, 337 KM of which was competitive stage.
Toby Price opened the special for the day and it was going good till a point. After 80 km into the special he made a navigation mistake and started loosing time. Without any major problems he managed to finish the day but the weight of being stage opener caused him loosing 14’42” against the stage winner. Toby came in P22 for the day and now sits on P8 in the general classification.
It was all about Joan Barreda and his Honda today. Argentinean got the lead at the very first CP and never looked back. He completed the day in 2H46’50” and will be opening Tomorrow’s, expectedly the toughest, special.
KTM’s rookie Daniel Sunders came in P2 and Husqvarna’s Luciano Benavides P3.
With this results Xavier De Soultrait became the new general classification leader with just 15” before Barreda.
Retirements of the day;
Angelo Pedemonte and Nicolás Robledo Serna forced to retire from the rally due to injuries. Another retirement of the day was Alexandre Azinhais. 22 km into the special he had an engine failure and called it quits.
Stage Highlights;
Stage Comments
Toby Price “Today was a little easier than last few days, normally we ride in quite a large group of riders but today Kevin & I led out a little bit. I made some mistakes, 22nd in stage and 8th overall, but the tyre & Bike are great so I’m still happy.”
Xavier De Soultrait “A lot of happiness today! We were really super-fast, a lot of pleasure to be there, in these conditions! I finished 5th on the stage, which allows me to be 1st in the provisional classification after stage 4, very happy because it is a first for me in the Dakar! I continue like this because the classification is very tight, we are 11 pilots separated by less than 10min.”
