2024 Desafío Ruta 40
With KTM pulling out of most Rally competitions around the world, Honda is cleaning up. Just 15 seconds separated the 2024 Dakar winner Ricky Brabec and Tosha Schareina after 18 hours of rallying through Argentina in what was a mammoth battle to the finish aboard their Honda CRF450 Rally machines.
Brabec took Honda’s 10th win at the Argentine Desafio Ruta 40 Rally as Honda took a 1-2-3 clean sweep of the podium, the first manufacturer to do so in World Rally-Raid Championship history as the Monster Energy Honda Team won every stage of the rally.
Ruben Faria – Monster Energy Honda Team
“It has been an amazing rally for the Monster Energy Honda Team with our riders taking the top four spots and sixth overall, which is something that’s not happened in rally for a long time. I’m really happy with the whole team, they did a really good job and it was a great performance by the riders on the Honda CRF450 Rally, which performed superbly throughout the week to bring us this fantastic result at the end. I’d like to thank all the team for the amazing job that they’ve done, all the people in Japan that work on the bike and the riders too.”
The culmination of the rally today was hotly contested between the American and the Spaniard with Brabec starting the stage 1’27” ahead in the overall standings this morning, with Tosha the first to get into the action on the 218 km stage; as the defending champion the Spaniard was going to put in a valiant effort to reclaim the spoils. He instantly clawed back time over the early parts of the stage cutting Brabec’s lead to just 22 seconds at one point leaving the final 100km run to the finish to be the focus of the entire rally as the finish came across the horizon at Cordoba.
Schareina sped across the finish line to take his second consecutive stage win of the week, adding to his prologue win, but it wasn’t quite enough to hold off Brabec, who, with a 1’12” gap, kept hold of the overall lead and took victory. After only contending the jewel in the crown for Rally Raid Dakar Rally so far this year, it means Brabec has taken two victories out of two starts in 2024.
Adrien Van Beveren completed the fourth Honda podium lockout of a Desafio Ruta 40 stage in 2024 after a consistently high performance all week. The Frenchman took a stage win and third place on the final podium.
Skyler Howes had an outside chance for a podium finish, but although he put in a flawless ride, he finished the day in sixth, which put him fourth overall, making it his highest-ever finish for Honda.
Pablo Quintanilla had some struggles during the week with the differing terrain and difficult navigation, but he had a positive final day to cross the line in fifth as he rounded out the five Monster Energy Honda Team riders to be in the top six of the overall standings.
After five long days and 3,200 kilometres of riding, Daniel Sanders finished the rally in ninth place overall. From Chucky’s impressive fourth-place stage result to Sam Sunderland’s unfortunate early departure, it’s certainly been a journey for the Red Bull GASGAS Factory Racing team this week.
Daniel Sanders
“So that’s day five over and we’re done. It’s not an ideal result of course, but I’m happy to have got to the finish and we have certainly learned a lot. I’ve put in a lot of work the last two months training at home, so I feel like I came here fully prepared. Unfortunately, I couldn’t quite get the most out of this week, but we will continue to work hard and I’m looking forward to going racing again!”
Andreas Hölzl – Rally Team Manager
“It’s been a difficult week for us, but we are happy that Daniel made it safely to the finish line and secured a pretty solid result after everything. However, we’re now turning our focus completely to the Rallye du Maroc and Dakar. We will continue to work hard as a team and get back to where we know we need to be.”
In the World Rally-Raid Championship standings, Ricky Brabec has propelled himself up to second, just nine points behind the leader Ross Branch, with Adrien Van Beveren a further seven points back. Meanwhile, in the manufacturer standings, Honda is back on top as the championship battle hots up heading into the Rallye du Maroc in October.
Desafío Ruta 40 2024
- BRABEC Ricky 9 USA Monster Energy Honda Team Honda 18:08:37
- SCHAREINA Tosha 68 SPA Monster Energy Honda Team Honda + 00:15
- VAN BEVEREN Adrien 42 FRA Monster Energy Honda Team Honda + 05:33
- HOWES Skyler 10 USA Monster Energy Honda Team Honda + 12:58
- EVAN BRANCH Ross 16 BWA Hero Motorsports Team Rally Hero + 14:57
- QUINTANILLA Pablo 7 CHI Monster Energy Honda Team Honda + 23:55
9. Daniel Sanders (GASGAS) 18:58:08
FIM World Rally-Raid Championship
- Ross Branch (Hero MotoSports): 72 points
- Ricky Brabec (Monster Energy Honda): 63 points (-9)
- Adrien Van Beveren (Monster Energy Honda): 56 points (-16)
