Dakar Bikes, Stage 10: Svitko bags maiden win, Price still leads

Thunderstorms towards the end of the stage resulted in the Belen-La Rioja test being cut from 278 to 244 kilometres, as Svitko led through the first waypoint and went unchallenged thereafter.

The Slovakan sealed his maiden Dakar stage win by 2m54s from Honda rider Kevin Benavides, with Price coming home third, almost six minutes down.

Svitko therefore closes the gap to fellow KTM rider Price, the gap between the two now standing at 23m12s with three stages remaining.

Honda's top man Goncalves, whose hopes of finishing the rally were revived by Tuesday's stage being shortened, remains third overall after finishing fourth on the day, now 34 minutes adrift of Price.

Pablo Quintanilla (Husqvarna) and Antoine Meo (KTM) make up the top five, ahead of Benavides and Helder Rodrigues (Yamaha), the last rider within an hour of the lead.

American rider Ricky Brabec moves up to eighth at the expense of KTM privateer Gerard Farres.

UPDATE: Goncalves was later awarded a penalty of 39m56s, dropping him from third overall to eighth, an hour and 14 minutes behind Price. This was to account for the time the Portuguese rider had spent stationary trying to repair his radiator on Stage 9, for which he had been given a nominal time.

Standings after Stage 10:

Pos.	No.	Rider	Bike	Time/Gap
1	3	Toby Price	KTM	34h49m04s
2	5	Stefan Svitko	KTM	23m12s
3	4	Pablo Quintanilla	Husqvarna	42m49s
4	49	Antoine Meo	KTM	44m04s
5	47	Kevin Benavides	Honda	45m10s
6	7	Helder Rodrigues	Yamaha	56m17s
7	48	Ricky Brabec	Honda	1h12m08s
8	2	Paulo Goncalves	Honda	1h14m45s
9	23	Gerard Farres	KTM	1h15m09s
10	42	Adrian van Beveren	Yamaha	1h21m55s