Cornejo piles on the pressure with victory on stage two

It was a positive day for the Monster Energy Honda Team with all riders finishing in the top ten as José Ignacio Cornejo put in a superb ride to pick up his seventh Dakar rally stage win and move him up to second in the overall standings.

Ricky Brabec was second off the start line and immediately into the 20 km of dunes, on a day where the navigation specialists would come into their element on the off-piste sections.  Not surprisingly, Cornejo, who favours tricky navigation, would catch the lead group of Ross Branch and Brabec 90 km in to be in command during most of the stage.  Pablo Quintanilla added himself into the mix, with at one point just a second separating the Chilean riders as the Hondas impressed on the vast dirt tracks around the black stone mountains.

There’s a new bonus system coming into play for 2024, competitors within 15 seconds of the opening rider will benefit too and with 6’23” available today, Cornejo made the most of this despite a small crash, to accumulate 4’14 in bonuses sharing this with Branch and Brabec.

With Quintanilla finishing in third and Brabec putting in another impressive performance in fifth, the overall standings see the Monster Energy Honda Team piling the pressure onto overall leader Ross Branch for the podium positions as Cornejo is now just under three minutes behind, third placed Brabec is over seven minutes back and Quintanilla with a fifteen minute deficit is in fourth.

Finding his rhythm on the third day was Skyler Howes as he gained confidence on his Honda CRF450 RALLY across the 463 km special to get himself up to eighth as Adrien Van Beveren ended the day in ninth in what was a good result for the team after the retirement of Tosha Schareina yesterday.

The Dakar Rally continues unabated tomorrow with stage three serving up a 438 km test and a 295 km liaison as riders will encounter a mix of sandy sections, dunes and very rough terrain which might cause a few tyre issues as they head deep into Saudi Arabia to Al Salamiya.  Another twist for the day is that mechanics will get just two hours to work on the bikes in the evening before they are taken to Parc Fermé at the bivouac.

RallyGP Results – Stage 2 

RallyGP Provisional Standings after Stage 2