After winning yesterday's stage, Daniel Sanders led the charge in the longest special of the race, a challenge that the Australian tackled with flying colors.
Toby Price (Red Bull KTM Factory Racing) and Ricky Brabec (Monster Energy Honda) came close to his intermediate times, but "Chucky" let his speed do the talking near the end of the special and posted the fastest raw time. Tasked with opening the stage from start to finish at this pace, he racked up nearly seven minutes of bonus time.
Ricky Brabec, a four-time winner of the Sonora Rally, found himself relegated to 6′40″, which a one-minute penalty for speeding brought 7′40″ —exactly the same as Toby Price's deficit at the finish. In the overall standings, Sanders opened up a wide gap and now has 15′11″ to spare over Luciano Benavides (Husqvarna Factory Racing) and 16′42″ over Price.
Adrien Van Beveren (Monster Energy Honda) is 17′17″ down. Brabec, who knows the race like the back of his hand, was already resigned and even ventured a prediction that "Chucky" would collect more bonus time in the next two days, cruising towards his first career victory in the world championship.
The record holder for wins in the Sonora Rally knows that he is out of the running for a fifth title in Mexico despite a solid performance today. A crash in stage 1 damaged his exhaust, which ended up wrecking an internal sensor of his top engine in yesterday's stage. The change of the CRF Rally block last night cost the Californian 15 minutes in penalties, pushing him down to eleventh place, nearly twenty-seven minutes back: "Bonus time is definitely a big advantage this rally, but if you don't have a shot at taking over the rider in front of you and gaining some minutes on them then don't plan on getting bonus time [laughter]. It's been a roller coaster, but I wish things were different for us, we will try to come back next year to regain the champ of Sonora, this place is awesome and looking forward to two more days of action in the desert with the competition."
In Rally2, Romain Dumontier (HT Rally Raid Husqvarna Racing) once again dominated the stage from A to Z. Only Jacob Argubright (Duust Diverse Racing) managed to stay in touch, finishing 2′21″ behind the Frenchman.
"Dudu" now leads the overall standings by 11′55″ over Argubright, 18′46″ over Bradley Cox, and 25′23″ over Paolo Lucci, the two BAS World KTM Racing riders. In Rally3, the Italian Massimo Camurri won again and expanded his lead in the standings to more than an hour over his two rivals.
ASO