Dakar 2017, Stage 12: Karyakin takes honours in quads race
Russian rider Sergey Karyakin took his first Dakar Rally win in the quads category, comfortably seeing off 2014 champion Ignacio Casale in a race of high attrition.
Photo by: A.S.O.
Karyakin, who took a career-best fourth place in his third Dakar participation last year, had entered Saturday's final 64km stage with a lead of more than an hour over Casale as he won three of the four preceding stages.
While Casale was the race's most-fancied entrant from the Dakar's home continent, several fellow South Americans looked in a strong position early on – but early leader Marcelo Medeiros of Brazil crashed out, while local favourite Walter Nosiglia of Bolivia exited through a technical problem.
Race debutant Simon Vitse thus lead the category heading into the rest day, ahead of Karyakin and fellow French competitor Alex Dutrie.
Vitse's victory challenge, however, fell apart on the second day of week two, as he spent several hours at a standstill before calling it quits. Over the two next stages, Dutrie would also drop out of contention.
This left it between the two Yamahas of Karyakin and Casale, but the fight proved rather one-sided, Karyakin gradually increasing his advantage over the Chilean before picking up 55 minutes during the penultimate stage.
Casale won the final Rio Cuarto stage on Saturday morning, but it was only enough to dent Karyakin's advantage by just over a minute - giving the Russian a final winning margin of 1h16m24s.
Argentine Pablo Copetti was third, a full four hours down on Karyakin, followed by Rafal Sonik and Axel Dutrie.
Final results - Top 10:
Pos. | Rider | Quad | Time/Gap |
---|---|---|---|
1 | Sergey Karyakin | Yamaha | 39hr18m52s |
2 | Ignacio Casale | Yamaha | +1hr14m51s |
3 | Pablo Copetti | Yamaha | +4hr20m19s |
4 | Rafal Sonik | Yamaha | +5hr33m29s |
5 | Axel Dutrie | Yamaha | +5hr45m24s |
6 | Bruno da Costa | Yamaha | +5hr57m18s |
7 | Santiago Hansen | Honda | +5hr57m19s |
8 | Nelson Sanabria | Yamaha | +6hr11m46s |
9 | Daniel Domaszewski | Honda | +6hr39m45s |
10 | Kamil Wisniewski | Can Am | +8hr06m09s |
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