Ricky Brabec grabs a last gasp Dakar Rally stage win

Two-time Dakar Rally winner Ricky Brabec, timed his ride to perfection as he took victory on stage six today by 23 seconds over his Honda  teammate Adrien Van Beveren.

It was the second consecutive stage victory for Monster Energy Honda HRC in Saudi Arabia after Van Beveren’s first place on Friday making it 112 stage victories for Honda since Christian Desnoyers kicked off their winning ways back in 1979 on the original Paris-Dakar.

The rest day gave the Monster Energy Honda HRC riders a much needed boost as it prepared them for today’s super long stage on their Honda CRF450 RALLY bikes, where 605km of special stage was the task split up by an untimed 172km road section.

This interlude would offer competitors a brief break from the stoney canyons as they exited Ha’il before they faced challenging dunes on their way south to Al Duwadimi.

The early part of the stage saw plenty of chopping and changing at the top as the riders looked to take the advantage heading into the transfer section, but it was Ricky Brabec who powered his way through the final phase amongst the dunes to take his 11th Dakar Rally stage victory, his first of 2025.

Although he stopped to assist a stricken Ross Branch, it was a brilliant performance by the American as he kept his nerve to move closer to the overall podium as he now is just 23’18” off the lead of the rally in fourth.

Following a steward’s decision yesterday to re-instate some time to Adrien Van Beveren’s stage time from stage five the day before, the Frenchman was declared the winner of that stage during the rest day yesterday to further boost the morale of the squad as they went in to the second week of the rally today.

It worked too as Adrien had his best day so far on this 2025 Dakar Rally as he opened the entire stage and led it from stat to finish setting a blistering pace across his favoured sandy tracks to rack up every single one of the 6’11” bonus time available.

Although narrowly pipped to the top spot today by Brabec, he has chipped away at his time in the general standings and gained a further five minutes on the overall lead of the rally while remaining in third.

Second overall heading into the rest day, Tosha Schareina was determined to pile on the pressure and kept his head down throughout the 605kms today to arrive at the finish line just 2’27” behind Brabec.

 Although he continues to hold his second overalll, the gap to the leader Sanders has now been cut to 11’46” so he’ll look to the spend the coming days pushing hard to reduce that time even further.

Eighth placed Skyler Howes got through the first part of the stage with a small navigation error that lost him a bit of time but while clawing it back with a strong pace he was unfortunately hit by some bike set up issues in the dunes in what was a frustrating stage for the American rider.

It was a close run affair amongst the top rally-raid riders in the world as Pablo Quintanilla completed the top ten on a day where just 5’46” separated him from the stage win.

Amongst the front runners early on, Quintanilla was caught out by many spectators’ cars in the dune section and in the ensuing confusion he lost a couple of minutes while he got himself back on track.

Tomorrow’s stage seven has been amended and the riders will now start with a 188km road section to get them to the new start line before they’ll tackle 411km against the clock as they head up into the mountains on a loop from Al Duwadimi.

Ricky Brabec  9
STAGE: 1ST  OVERALL: 4TH

We’re not in first, so we’re not controlling the game, but we’re just trying to do our best to make up time to better our overall position.

I think there’s other people out there playing games and right now we’re just trying to manage ourselves and do the best we can.

With regard to the day I’m happy with my riding and navigation. I’m also happy that Ross is OK, I saw where he crashed and pushed the rescue button.

I saw the helicopter was just across the valley so I figured for me, it was better to ride across to it for a few kilometres and get the helicopter rather than try to phone them.

At the end of the day he’s good which is the main thing. We still have six days of racing with a lot of time to make up, so we’ll do our best and hopefully get some bonus time tomorrow.

Rally GP Results – Stage 6
1    BRABEC
Ricky    9    USA    Monster Energy Honda HRC    05:00:51
2    VAN BEVEREN
Adrien    42    FRA    Monster Energy Honda HRC    + 00:23
3    CORNEJO FLORIMO
José Ignacio    11    CHI    Hero Motorsports Team Rally    + 00:51
4    SCHAREINA
Tosha    68    SPA    Monster Energy Honda HRC    + 02:27
5    BENAVIDES
Luciano    1    ARG    KTM Factory Racing Team    + 03:36
6    SANTOLINO
Lorenzo    15    SPA    Sherco TVS Rally Factory    + 03:47
7    KLEIN
Mason    43    USA    BAS World KTM Racing Team    + 04:22
8    HOWES
Skyler    10    USA    Monster Energy Honda HRC    + 05:09
9    SANDERS
Daniel        AUS    KTM Factory Racing Team    + 05:43
10    QUINTANILLA
Pablo    7    CHI    Monster Energy Honda HRC    + 05:46

Rally GP Provisional Standings after Stage 6
1    SANDERS
Daniel        AUS    KTM Factory Racing Team    35:18:49
2    SCHAREINA
Tosha    68    SPA    Monster Energy Honda HRC    + 11:46
3    VAN BEVEREN
Adrien    42    FRA    Monster Energy Honda HRC    + 19:11
4    BRABEC
Ricky    9    USA    Monster Energy Honda HRC    + 23:18
5    HOWES
Skyler    10    USA    Monster Energy Honda HRC    + 27:25
6    BENAVIDES
Luciano    1    ARG    KTM Factory Racing Team    + 30:08
7    QUINTANILLA
Pablo    7    CHI    Monster Energy Honda HRC    + 40:52
8    CORNEJO FLORIMO
José Ignacio    11    CHI    Hero Motorsports Team Rally    + 44:39
9    SANTOLINO
Lorenzo    15    SPA    Sherco TVS Rally Factory    + 01:09:28
10    SVITKO
Stefan    142    SLO    Slovnaft Rally Team    + 01:30:44

Source : https://www.fim-moto.com/en/news/news-detail/article/ricky-brabec-grabs-a-last-gasp-dakar-rally-stage-win

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