Price takes maiden win

Friday 15 January
12th leg: Termas Rio Hondo - Rosario
Link section: 248 km – Special: 298 km – Link section: 478 km – Total: 1024 km The new generation is decidedly not lacking in talent! After Matthias Walkner (KTM) who won the third leg in his maiden Dakar, this time another rookie, Australia’s Toby Price  (KTM), has won the Termas Rio Hondo – Rosario Special. Since the start of this  2015 Dakar, Price has finished in the top five on seven occasions, a performance that seems to augur well for his future career in cross country rallies, especially as he is now third on the leader board just 23’ behind Coma.  Following Price, who is replacing Chaleco Lopez on a “non-factory” bike, the two Honda riders, Joan Barreda and Paolo Goncalves, finished second (just 1'55 behind) and third (at 3'02), respectively. Goncalves made up time on Marc Coma, who finished 6th, 6'25 adrift of the winner, but the experienced rider from Catalonia is skilfully managing his chance for a fifth win and not taking any risks.  Behind the official KTM, the two Slovaks Jakes et Svitko took the opportunity to make their mark, taking 4th and 5th,  with just one leg to go before the finish line Buenos Aires. Chile’s Pablo Quintanilla (KTM), who came in 8th behind Helder Rodrigues (Honda), has fallen a bit further behind Tony Price on the leader board, finishing 10' behind the winner at Rosario. Unfortunately, not everyone had a good day: Joan Pedrero (Yamaha) has returned home after dropping out in the Calama special with electrical problems because of salt in the Salar de Uyuni that inverted the polarity of his battery, and the two Sherco riders, Alain Duclos and Fabien Planet, were spotted at a standstill at km 224 in today’s Special.  In quad, Christophe Declerck gave it his all in this penultimate leg to take a second win in a row with a lead of over 7’ over Nelson Sanabria. Rafal Sonik who, at almost 50, is still holding on to the first step of the podium, finished 4th. Camelia Liparoti, tenacious as ever, is 14th overall.  Today the motorcycle contingent returned relatively late to the Rosario bivouac located at a hippodrome in the city centre, as they still had 478 km to cover after the Special, brining the entire leg to 1024 km. But they were allowed to load the motorcycles in the trucks.