advrider Posted October 20, 2023 Share Posted October 20, 2023 The 2023 FIM World Rally Raid Championship is over, with the Rallye Du Maroc wrapping up this week. The race result, in the moto category, was a big win for KTM factory rider Toby Price—but not big enough. In the end, Husqvarna’s Luciano Benavides ended up winning the series overall, despite Price’s strong performance in Morocco. It went down this way: At the start of the Morocco race, Price was only nine points behind Benavides in the title hunt, and in the opening stages, he zipped into the lead, while Benavides slipped back down the race standings. It looked like his nine-point margin might slip away to Price. And then, on Stage Four, things flip-flopped. Benavides took the win in Stage Four and did well enough on the final stage that he was able to keep his lead in the series. Finishing second in the race was enough to preserve a razor-thin four-point lead over Price. Price stayed in second overall in the title chase, and third on the season went to Honda’s Adrien Van Beveren, who finished sixth in Morocco (his teammate Pablo Quintanilla was third, Ross Branch was fourth on his Hero, and Ignacio Cornejo was fifth on his Honda). In the Rally2 category, Romain Dumontier finished second at Morocco, which was good enough to nail down the title (Bradley Cox won the Rally2 category, which gave him fourth overall in the series). Other notes Morocco was a bit of a bloodbath this year. Matthias Walkner (KTM) crashed out. Skyler Howes didn’t even make it past the prologue—he crashed out in his first race for his new Honda team. Ricky Brabec, the other American rider for Honda, had a DNF due to mechanical woes. Sam Sunderland (GasGas) exited the rally due to blurred vision. Presuming none of those incidents are the cause or result of longer-term health woes, it seems we will be set up for a very good race at Dakar this January. We haven’t heard of anyone being seriously mangled, and with all the misfortune at Morocco, there are many riders with something to prove. Vezi sursa Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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