British motorcyclist Sam Sunderlad (Jas Gass), champion of the 2022 Dakar Rally, was forced to retire from the 2023 race yesterday Sunday in Saudi Arabia following an accident at kilometer 52 of the first stage. he was subsequently transferred to the hospital. Sunderland, topped by two versions of the Dakar Rally (also won in 2017), faced a crash after the first checkpoint, which it entered at the top of the stage (22:10) with a 10-second lead over Chilitz Pablo Quintagna. (Honda) and Spaniard Juan Barreda (Honda). Crash A British cyclist was given first aid by a medical team, according to organizers, and although he was “conscious and fully able to move”, he was transferred due to back pain, he suffered from an illness in plane to Yanbu Hospital (Saudi Arabia) for additional medical examinations.
The Briton, who competed in his tenth Dakar Rally, repeated what happened to him in his first title defense campaign in 2018, although he left then on stage four and after two partial victories.
820 drivers in 2023 version
On Saturday, the competitions of the 45th Dakar Rally, hosted by the Kingdom for the fourth year in a row, began and will last until January 15, 2023 with a distance of more than 8500 km.
On the first day, the preliminary stage of the rally started with a distance of 11 km around the Al-Bahr camp in Yanbu with the participation of drivers and navigators 820. Light desert “T3 and T4”, except for the category “Dakar Classic”.
Swede Matthias Ekström, driver of the Audi team, managed to win the preliminary stage in the T1 category, recording the best time, while the French Sebastian Loeb, the driver of the Bahrain Red Extreme team, came in second, and his compatriot Peter Hansel, the driver of the Audi team took third place, and the Qatari Nasser Al-Attiyah, the Toyota team driver who won the Dakar Rally title in the latest edition of 2022, finished fourth, followed by the French. Gularen Chicheret, driver of the GCK Motorsport team, in fifth place, followed by Spaniard Carlos Sainz, driver of Audi, sixth, and Saudi Yazid Al Raji, driver of Overdrive, in seventh place.
In the motorcycle category, KTM rider Toby Price of Australia was in the lead ahead of his compatriot Daniel Sanders of Gas Gas who came in second by one second, while gardener Ross Branch of Team Hero came in third.
Giro defends title
And in the ATV category, France’s Alexandre Giroud kicked off his title defense campaign by taking first place in the preliminary round, one second ahead of Brazil’s Marcelo Medeiros in second place, and Spaniard Daniel Villa in third place in the rankings.
Red Bull Can-Am’s Cristina Gutierrez of Spain took first place in the T3 light desert car category, followed by Red Bull Offroad’s Seth Quintero of the USA. team, in second place, and the Belgian William de Mevius was the pilot of the T3 team. The Jerali Team is the third race in this category.
As for the T4 light desert car category, the pilot of the Lithuanian Red Bull Can-Am team, Rokas Pasiushka, took the lead, ahead of the Brazilian Cristiano Batista, the pilot of the Southern Races. The third place was taken by the pilot of the Can-Am Factory South Racing team Gerard Faris from Spain.
Czech Martin Macek, driver of the MM Technology Team, took first place in the truck category, ahead of Dutchman Martin Vandenbrink, driver of Eurol Team de Rooy, and Dutchman Janus van Kasteren, driver of McInery Team de Rooy, took third place in the truck category. preliminary stage. It is expected that tomorrow morning, Sunday, January 1, 2023, the competition of the first stage will start in Yanbu, which will be a circular stage over a distance of 603 km. Of these, 235 km falls on the connecting stage, and 368 km – on the special stage for time. It is noteworthy that the new version of the Saudi Dakar Rally 2023 consists of 14 stages, including one introductory stage, as it passes through the Red Sea, all the way to the coast of the Persian Gulf, provided that this journey includes passing through Al-Ula, Hail , Dawadmi, Riyadh, Harad and Empty Quarter, Puck, Hofuf and Dammam.
