Australian Toby Price was not troubled on his way to a comfortable win on today’s special stage. He led a KTM lock out of the top four positions finishing 2’21” ahead of five times enduro world champion Antoine Méo. Stefan Svitko and Matthias Walkner were third and fourth respectively on the day. Joan Barreda was the first of the Hondas in fifth.
Update – Méo was penalized 5 minutes for losing his clocking in card. This drops him down to eighth for the stage. Svitko, Walkner and Barreda are now classified as second, third and fourth respectively for stage five.
As far as the Southern African riders go Wessel Bosman was classified 118th on the stage with Kobus Potgieter two places further back.
Overall leader Paulo Gonçalves (Honda) had a tough day finishing almost 9 minutes behind Price in twelfth place. His lead at the top of the standings is now only 1’45” over Svitko with Price just two seconds further back. Barreda is in fourth.
Potgieter is in 113rd place in the overall bike rankings while Bosman is 116th.
In the quads Brian Baragwanath was back on the pace after losing over 40 minutes yesterday due to a puncture. He finished the day in second 1’36” behind Alexis Hernandez but was later hit with a 38 minute penalty, which dropped him down to seventeenth for the stage. Baragwanath’s indiscretion promoted Alejandro Patronelli, who had his best day of the event so far, to second ahead of Sergei Karyakin. George Twigge was classified in ninth for the stage with team mate Ted Barbier in 35th.
The quad race was marked by problems for a number of riders today. Marcelo Medeiros, who was in second position overall at the start of the day, crashed heavily early in the stage and was airlifted to hospital. Qatari rider Mohammed Abu-Issa stopped suffering from electrical problems after dicing with Hernandez for the lead at one time. Sébastien Souday was forced to withdraw with a broken engine and overall leader at the start of the stage, Ignacio Casale, stopped near one of the checkpoints with what is believed to be an engine problem.
Karyakin has the overall lead, almost five minutes ahead of Hernandez, with Alejandro Patronelli in third. Baragwanath’s penalty has spoiled his move up the overall rankings and he is now in fifteenth, just ahead of Twigge. Barbier is in 32nd place.
Updated to reflect penalties.
