Cycle News Staff | August 30, 2023
The 11th running of the Desafio Ruta 40 is back on the World Rally-Raid Championship schedule after a five year hiatus. The Argentina stop is the penultimate round in the series with five stages totaling over 3000 kilometers in distance. Stay tuned as we cover this year’s rally.
Stage 5
Stage five is the final stage of the rally with a 160 mile special and a 189.5 mile liaison. The rally ends similar to how it began, with fast riverbeds and wide open terrain.
Schareina cruised stage five for the overall win.
Tosha Schareina finally claimed his first major rally win after leading the race all week long. The Spaniard, who’s not yet an official HRC team rider, finished outside the top five on stage five, but that didn’t matter due to his over 10-minute lead on Benavides.
Overall podium.
Luciano Benavides grabbed second overall in this year’s race, but more importantly takes over the points lead in the W2RC championship. The Argentinian was not likely to make up the time deficit to Schareina in the final day but still rode a smart stage towards his hometown. His final time was 11:36 back from the leader.
Benavides is now the points leader in the W2RC.
Adrien Van Beveren finished the rally with a win on stage five, just shy of a minute better than Ross Branch. ABV started the week with a strong prologue and ends it on top as well. He was fifth in the overall times.
Van Beveren won stage five.
Ricky Brabec grabbed third on the final stage of the rally and secured third overall as well. The American was fast all week but never grabbed the crucial time bonuses.
Toby Price looked to finish with a bang after mechanical struggles early in the rally. He set the best time of the bikes but dropped to fourth after receiving a speeding penalty. He finished ninth in the overall classification and loses the championship points lead in the process.
Results – Stage 5
1. Adrien Van Beveren (Hon) 2:39:44
2. Ross Branch (Hero) +0:58
3. Ricky Brabec (Hon) +1:39
4. Toby Price (KTM) +2:59
5. Bradley Cox (KTM) +3:35
Overall Results – Stage 5
1. Tosha Schareina (Hon) 15:58:46
2. Luciano Benavides (Hus) +11:36
3. Ricky Brabec (Hon) +21:16
4. Ross Branch (Hero) +26:45
5. Adrien Van Beveren (Hon) +28:52
Stage 4
Stage four marks the penultimate stage of the rally with a 214 mile special and a 145 mile liaison half-way through. Challenging dunes comprised most of the stage as well as it being the final day to grab any extra time bonuses.
Endless landscapes of sand for stage four.
Luciano Benavides took his first stage win of the rally after three successive second-place finishes. He excelled through the dunes in the second half of the special and accumulated time bonuses by leading out the stage. Benavides still trails Schareina by more than five minutes but looks to take a stronghold of the World Rally-Raid Points standings.
Benavides claimed his first win of the rally.
For the first time of this year’s rally Tosha Schareina did not claim the stage win. The Honda rider finished second to his main rival, Benavides, only losing 36 seconds in the process. Schareina continues to lead in the overall rankings by over five minutes and barring any major mistakes on the final day, he’s a shoe-in for his first major rally win.
Schareina took second but still leads overall.
Ricky Brabec again ran at the front of the pack but missed the top time due to the bonus system. The American has voiced his dislike of the bonuses and still holds down third in the overall classification.
Brabec is back to form and finished third.
Rally 2 rider Michael Docherty showed he can run the pace of the best and clocked the fastest time of anyone on track. The Rally GP riders grabbed the extra time bonuses which dropped Docherty down to fourth place.
Rally 2 rider, Michael Docherty, finished in the top five overall.
Results – Stage 4
1. Luciano Benavides (Hus) 2:53:57
2. Tosha Schareina (Hon) +0:36
3. Ricky Brabec (Hon) +1:46
4. Michael Docherty (KTM) +3:20
5. Toby Price (KTM) +4:40
Overall Results – Stage 4
1. Tosha Schareina (Hon) 13:15:26
2. Luciano Benavides (Hus) +5:47
3. Ricky Brabec (Hon) +23:13
4. Ross Branch (Hero) +29:23
5. Adrien Van Beveren (Hon) +32:28
Stage 3
Stage three set off with a 164.6 mile special and a 122 mile liaison. A challenging mix of sandy tracks, riverbeds, and several small sections of dunes awaited them as about three hours of racing at elevation tested the competitors during the half-way mark of this year’s rally.
Price bounced back with a fifth on stage three.
The defending number-one of Sam Sunderland retired from the race during today’s stage after picking up an energy-sapping sickness bug overnight. The two-time Dakar champion has still yet to complete a rally this year. Toby Price also bounced back after his mechanical issue on stage two. He logged fifth on the day.
Schareina continues to lead in Argentina.
Tosha Schareina still leads the way after opening again on stage three. With bonuses, he’s tacked on six minutes to his growing overall lead.
Benavides stayed close to the front with another second place result, only about a minute and a half behind Schareina. He rode nearly mistake free despite a sore wrist from an incident on stage two and still sits second overall. His goal is points in the overall championship as leader Schareina is not competing in the World Championship.
Benavides is riding a smart second place.
Brabec clocked the fastest time of the stage, but is credited with third after the riders in front of him picked up the added time bonuses. He’s now third in the overall rally classification, 22 minutes back.
Brabec was arguably the fastest but missed the time bonus.
Results – Stage 3
1. Tosha Schareina (Hon) 2:58:13
2. Luciano Benavides (Hus) +1:40
3. Ricky Brabec (Hon) +1:52
4. Ross Branch (Hero) +7:58
5. Toby Price (KTM) +10:00
Overall Results – Stage 3
1. Tosha Schareina (Hon) 10:20:53
2. Luciano Benavides (Hus) +6:23
3. Ricky Brabec (Hon) +22:03
4. Ross Branch (Hero) +22:36
5. Adrien Van Beveren (Hon) +24:02
Stage 2
Tuesday saw stage two kick off with with a 210.6 mile special and a 74.5 mile liaison. The sandy conditions added extra challenges but might be familiar to those who competed in the South American running of the Dakar Rally.
Tough day for Toby Price as he gave up over an hour due to a broken shock.
Tosha Schareina led the bikes out after winning stage one. But the big news came from series points leader, Toby Price as he broke his rear shock just 90 miles into the stage. Unable to repair the damage, Toby had no option but to wait for assistance. His KTM teammate, Mattias Walkner stopped to fix the issue and swapped his shock over to Price’s machine. Price still finished the stage in 18th but lost over an hour of time in the process. Walkner forfeits his rally due to providing help.
Tosha Schareina won again on the second stage.
Schareina again won the stage and picked up about seven minutes of bonus time along the way. He sits first overall with three stages remaining
Benavides clocked second.
Benavides rode second all day and finished there too. He did hit the time bonus and earned back another 4 minutes. The Argentina-native still holds second in the overall ranks.
Ricky Brabec was third on stage two.
Results – Stage 2
1. Tosha Schareina (Hon) 3:27:40
2. Luciano Benavides (Hus) +4:42
3. Ricky Brabec (Hon) +7:39
4. Ross Branch (Hero) +10:32
5. Ignacio Cornejo (Hon) +11:26
Overall Results – Stage 2
1. Tosha Schareina (Hon) 7:22:40
2. Luciano Benavides (Hus) +4:43
3. Adrien Van Beveren (Hon) +13:20
4. Ross Branch (Hero) +14:38
5. Ricky Brabec (Hon) +20:11
Stage 1
Stage one marks the official start of the 2023 Desafio Ruta 40. A 224 mile liaison and a 207 mile special make up the day’s route which featured mostly hardened-gravel roads.
Tosha Schareina won the opening stage of the rally.
Nacho Cornejo led the bikes off the start and crossed the line without losing a position on track. Leading the first stage can be a disadvantage and unfortunately the Honda rider did lose about seven minutes on overall time.
Benavides is just one second behind on overall time.
Spanish young gun, Tosha Schareina, piloted his Honda CRF450R Rally to the opening victory. Schareina’s time was just 17 seconds clear of Husqvarna’s Luciano Benavides and 1:33 clear of prologue winner, Adrien Van Beveren.
Results – Stage 1
1. Tosha Schareina (Hon) 3:00:12
2. Luciano Benavides (Hus) 3:00:29
3. Adrien Van Beveren (Hon) 3:01:45
4. Toby Price (KTM) 3:03:29
5. Ross Branch (Hero) 3:03:38
Overall Results – Stage 1
1. Tosha Schareina (Hon) 3:55:00
2. Luciano Benavides (Hus) 3:55:01
3. Adrien Van Beveren (Hon) 3:56:09
4. Toby Price (KTM) 3:58:17
5. Ross Branch (Hero) 4:01:32
Prologue
Only nine points separate the top three riders with Toby Price leading the overall points standings. Honda’s Adrien Van Beveren kicked off the rally with the prologue win.
Van Beveren kicked things off with the prologue win.
The initial prologue set the stage for the rally and consisted of an 18 mile liaison along with a 5.59 mile special. Van Beveren, who’s third in the championship points, won the prologue with a time of 6:48. He bested the home-country hero, Luciano Benavides by just one second with third place Ricky Brabec another second back. The top 10 riders were only separated by 15 seconds in total.
Benavides was a close second, just one second off.
With the win, Van Beveren chooses his start position for stage one. He elected to leave ninth, three minutes behind Benavides.
“Overall I had a good feeling during this prologue,” said Van Beveren. “I enjoy this kind of track, it’s technical and slippery. It was easy to make mistakes, I made only one when I entered too fast on a corner.
Ricky Brabec clocked third.
Stage one is the official start of the rally with a 224 mile liaison and a 207 mile special.
1. Adrien Van Beveren (Hon) 6:48
2. Luciano Benavides (Hus) 6:49
3. Ricky Brabec (Hon) 6:50
4. Matthias Walkner (KTM) 6:50
5. Tosha Schareina (Hon) 6:51
