Americans Strike Early at Dakar With Brabec, Quintero, Jones Up Front After Stage 1
Image via Red Bull Content Pool
2020 Dakar Rally winner Ricky Brabec put in a solid opening day of action, and benefitted from a handful of speeding penalties to some of his top competitors, to claim the motorcycle class win in Stage 1 of the 2023 Dakar Rally, avenging two years of early-race troubles to lead a throng of American riders in the top 10. Americans had a similarly successful day in the T3 Lightweight Prototype class, with three racers—led by Seth Quintero, winner of 12 stages last year—in the top six.
Brabec jumped from a stage podium to his eight career stage win when speeding penalties to initial stage winner Daniel Sanders and Joan Barreda knocked them to the other end of the top five. Brabec’s 4:14:10 was good for 19 seconds on runner-up Kevin Benavides and 39 seconds on Toby Price. Joining Brabec as American racers in the top 10 were Mason Klein, whose 4:15:24 was good for sixth, and Skyler Howes, who was just four minutes adrift of Klein in ninth overall. In addition, Jacob Argubright, a veteran of American hare and hound racing, posted a 32nd place stage finish as he sets off on his first Dakar.
Quintero’s third attempt at winning the Dakar in T3 hasn’t seen stage wins on either day so far, but winning 18 of those over two years but failing to crack the final top 10 each year, he’d probably trade them all in for that first elusive overall victory. The Californian was 3:07 behind stage winner and defending class champion Chaleco Lopez today, putting him third in the division. Ironically enough, due to Quintero’s day-to-day dominance of last year’s event, the stage win was Lopez’s first in two years.
Joining Quintero in the top six of T3 were new teammate AJ Jones, who finished 25 seconds behind him in fourth, and Mitch Guthrie Jr. in sixth, more than seven minutes behind Jones. Neither were a part of the class last year, as Jones won last year’s event in the T4 class, and Guthrie was a last-minute withdrawal from the event due to an unfortunately timed case of COVID-19 before traveling to Saudi Arabia.
Carlos Sainz scored his 42nd career Dakar stage win in the car class, holding off Sebastien Loeb by just 10 seconds, while Alexandre Giroud (quads), Martin Macik (trucks), and Eryk Goczal (SSV) were the other stage winners. Coverage of today’s action will debut at 6:30PM ET on Peacock, while racers will set their sights on a 430-kilometer trek from Sea Camp to Al Ula tomorrow.