Joan Barreda Wins Merzouga Rally 2018
Cycle News Staff | April 20, 2018
Joan Barreda Wins Merzouga Rally 2018 – Joan Barreda was the overall winner at the Merzouga Rally in Morocco, April 16-20. After six stages, Barreda beat out his Monster Energy Honda teammate Kevin Benavides by six minutes and 10 seconds.
Joan Barreda Wins Merzouga Rally 2018
Joan Barreda won the Merzouga Rally in Morocco.
Third place went to Pablo Quintanilla of the Husqvarna Factory Rally Team, the Chilean finish a little over five minutes behind Benavides.
Between the two, Barreda and Benavides won five of the six special tests, including the prologue.
American Ricky Brabec (Monster Energy Honda Team) was fifth overall, 21 minutes behind the winner.
Husqvarna’s Andrew Short finished 10th overall.
“I am very happy to be back winning races again, especially because we can now forget about a year of injuries,” Barreda said. “There is still work to do to get back to 100 percent physically and be able to ride my way, without pain. That’s the way I like to do it: return to the competition like that, have a great race and finish with a win. This will serve as great motivation to keep pushing and reach the highest level by the end of the year.”
Brabec was pleased with his ride. “It’s the final stage of an eventful rally which had some highs and lows,” Brabec said. “The rally started off well with a great first stage, and then there were some good ones up until the fourth stage. That was where many people all had the same problems with the roadbook. I managed, like some of the others, to make it through to the end with a few mistakes, but this is rallying where everyone makes a few errors. I lost time that day, but in the final stage I was able to make it up and ended up finishing just 40 seconds off the podium. For me, that’s awesome and a confidence booster. I’m not totally happy with the overall result, but I’m pleased with the individual stages. Thanks to all.” CN
Joan Barreda Wins Merzouga Rally 2018
| OVERALL |
|
|
| 1. Joan Barreda (Hon) |
|
|
| 2. Kevin Benavides (Hon) |
|
|
| 3. Pablo Quintanilla (Hus) |
|
|
| 4. Franco Caimi (Yam) |
|
|
| 5. Ricky Brabec (Hon) |
|
|
| 6. Toby Price (KTM) |
|
|
| 7. Joan Pedrero (She) |
|
|
| 8. Jose Ignacio Cornejo (Hon) |
|
|
| 9. Stefan Svitko |
|
|
| 10. Andrew Short (Hus) |
|
|
Click here for complete results.
Click here for more off-road news and results.
