Husqvarna 1-2 for Rallye du Maroc Stage 3 | Price P6

2022 Rallye du Maroc – Stage Three
FIM Cross-Country Rallies World Championship

Husqvarna Factory Racing made Stage Three of the 2022 Rallye du Maroc, a 1-2 with Luciano Benavides winning the stage, bringing his FR 450 Rally home just 25 seconds ahead of team-mate Skyler Howes.

Completing the 299-kilometre timed special in just over three hours, Luciano Benavides secured his second career world championship stage victory with an excellent ride through some of the toughest terrain seen at the event so far.

Taking advantage of his ninth-place start position, Benavides was second on time to the checkpoint at kilometre 30, just one second down on the early leader. Continuing to push, the Argentinian soon moved into the lead, slowly increasing his advantage over teammate Howes to the finish.

Moving up to second overall, Luciano will now open Wednesday’s stage four – a difficult challenge, but one the young racer is ready to embrace.

Almost matching Benavides for pace throughout the stage, Skyler Howes put in an excellent ride from his fourth-place start position to lose the minimum of time, despite catching the leaders and opening several kilometres of the special.

Starting the day in the 12th position, Ross Branch delivered a focused ride that secured him yet another podium finish, and a rise to the fourth place in the overall Rally GP class rankings.

Sam Sunderland was back at the sharp end of the results as the Brit mastered the gnarly terrain to clock the fourth-fastest time. After what was by far his best performance this week, Sam’s now knocking on the door of the top five in the provisional standings with a spot on the overall podium well up for grabs.

Of the Monster Energy Honda Team, Ricky Brabec was the top performer finishing in fifth position, José Ignacio Cornejo was seventh, Pablo Quintanilla closed out the Top 10 and Adrien Van Beveren was 11th in the day’s stage.

Toby Price enjoyed a strong ride to sixth place, but lost three and a half minutes to the stage winner, however Price still lies third outright, less than five-minutes off the lead.

With times tight across the top 10 riders on day three, the result may prove key as the Australian will be the sixth rider to set off into Wednesday’s stage four – the longest of the event. Lying third overall, just under five minutes down, Price will be aiming to make up as much time as possible tomorrow as he chases down the riders ahead.

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Setting off in second place and catching the one rider ahead of him by kilometre 88, Kevin Benavides found himself opening much of the day’s stage.

Riding skilfully through the soft dunes while focusing on his navigation and making the minimum of errors, Benavides lost a little time on his rivals behind when he hit a rock and hurt his foot. However, with the stage opening out into faster tracks later in the day, the experienced Argentinian was able to forget the pain and push harder over the tough terrain to make up time and ultimately improve his position for the day.

Completing the stage in eighth, just over six minutes down, Kevin also lies eighth in the provisional standings with two days left to race.

Howes now leads the overall standings after Stage 3, 3m17s ahead of Luciano Benavides, with Toby Price 4m45s off the lead. Ricky Brabec and Sam Sunderland complete the top five, which is covered by ten-minutes.

Michael Burgess has continued his consistent performance, finishing 12th for Stage 3 in the Rally2 category, with D. Goodman 85th.

Stage four of the Rallye du Maroc leads riders north again from Laayoune to Tan-Tan. Totalling 665 kilometres, the stage represents the longest of the event and includes a demanding timed special of 346 kilometres.

Luciano Benavides – P1

“I’m really happy to take the stage win here in Morocco. It’s great for my confidence and it comes down to all the hard work the whole team put in earlier this year. The day went well for me – I navigated well and was able to keep a good pace. It’s great to finish first and second with my teammate Skyler and we are sitting at the top of the overall, too. We still have two more days left to race, so I’ll stay focused and can hopefully do a good job of opening tomorrow.”

Skyler Howes – P2

“Another hard day here in Morocco. Me and Luciano went one-two on the stage, which is super, super cool for us and cool for Husqvarna. It was quite tricky at first because the dunes were so soft and then the back sides of them were broken, which means it’s straight down to the desert floor. Not only is it difficult to navigate and choose a good line, but it’s really easy to get stuck and lose time. Thankfully it looks like everyone had the same issues, so it wasn’t too much of a problem. Later on the route opened up into much faster tracks, but with the wind and weather here, it has made finding the tracks really tough. After catching up to the leading group I just kept my head down to finish the stage safely. Second place on the stage and I’m still leading the rally, so things are good and I’m looking forward to tomorrow.”

Ross Branch – P3

“Today’s stage was quite rough, quite like how it was briefed to us. But I did start off well, and was able to get a great pace throughout the rally. I had a small crash in the dunes, but it didn’t set me back by much. I’m happy to have finished in the third place today, and looking forward to the rest of the race!”

Sam Sunderland – P4

“Another long and tough day. The wind we had today was pretty epic which blew sand across a lot of the tracks to make navigation even more tricky, but it’s the same for everyone, I guess. For the most part I was riding by myself for pretty much the whole stage, and I felt good on the bike, the best I have since the race started, I would say. Today was a big improvement so I’m aiming to carry on like this and keep on moving up the leaderboard.”

Ricky Brabec – P5

“This was a positive day for us, I spend the all stage up front with my team mate Adrien and my old team mate Kevin – we opened the track all together. I tried to make up the time here and there but it was not easy, it’s been difficult. There are two days left, tomorrow being one of the longest days. Now we will make some rest and we’ll make a good push tomorrow. The navigation here in Morocco is always pretty difficult, it’s really fast, really rocky and this means a lot of notes.”

Toby Price – P6

“Another good day for me today. It was quite a tough stage, and it has been so windy here today, that made things even harder as the tracks in front of you get covered up so quickly. Because of that I ended up pretty much alone for the whole day and navigating my way through. I made a couple of mistakes but nothing major and even though I’ve dropped to third in the overall, I didn’t finish too far behind on time today and have a good start position for the long stage four tomorrow. Things are looking good, I’ll just keep on taking each day as it comes.”

José Ignacio Cornejo – P7

“I had a lot of fun today, this was another tough day in Morocco. I felt really good on my Honda CRF 450 Rally, made only one mistake that cost me several minutes. I think I could have done a better stage, but we have two more days to go and we will fight for the best possible result.”

Kevin Benavides – P8

“I’m really happy with today actually. I started really strong and pushed a lot. Early on I unfortunately hit a rock with my foot and that slowed me down a little, but I was able to regroup and get my head down again. After catching Adrien (Van Beveren) I opened some kilometers up to the refueling. After that I ended up riding in a group of four, but we made good time on the last part of the special and managed to complete the stage safely. Hopefully my foot will be ok to ride tomorrow, and I’ll be able to try and catch the guys in front.”

Franco Caimi – P9

“It was another tough day in the desert for me. Anyhow my bike was performing well, and I’m happy that I made it back safe. I lost a little bit of time after refueling, but other than that it was a good fight today, and I will continue pushing till the end. Looking forward to tomorrow!”

Pablo Quintanilla – P10

“The third stage was a quick one with lot of stones and some dunes. I have tried to ride as fast as I could, but I still felt some pain in my shoulder. This made me feel limited. I was riding alone along the stage thinking about safety. It was hard but I am happy to be here and motivated to contribute to keep Honda’s leadership in the championship.”

Adrien Van Beveren – P11

“It was really difficult to open the stage and I have crashed two times. That happened when I did not have a reference line to follow so you never know if it’s going to be soft or hard. Then I was caught by Kevin and Ricky and we did the all stage together. I am happy about my navigation, I was focused on that. Overall I had a good performance.”

Sebastian Buhler – P13

“Even though the stage was tricky, I feel I had another good day. I have been improving my rhythm each day since the start of Rallye Du Maroc, and today was no different. I made a couple of small navigation errors, but I’m learning and improving daily; so I’m happy with my overall performance so far.”

2022 Rallye du Maroc, Stage 3 Results (Provisional)

2022 Rallye du Maroc standings after Stage 3