Monster Energy Honda Team finally take the spoils at Dakar 2022 with Barreda Bort winning stage two from Hail to Al Qaisumah with a 5min gap over British contender on the Gas Gas machine; Sam Sunderland.
In a tight fought stage with 12mins separating 1st and 10th place, there were definite winners and losers as early stage 1A & 1B winner Daniel Sanders losing ground coming in 19th some 24mins behind.
This leaves Sam Sunderland ruling the roost in first overall some 2:52mins ahead of steady and sure Van Beveren on the Yamaha.
Daniel Sanders on the Gas Gas slips to 3rd with former winner Matthias Walkner on the KTM coming in 4th just at 4:08mins behind Sunderland
Stage two winner Bort now climbs to 10th overall which makes somewhat of a change for the Spaniard who usually starts with a bang but encounters problems in later stages to scupper his chances.
Last year’s winner Kevin Benavides in his new KTM team slips to 11th with his 3rd place finish on stage two and early high flyer Pablo Quintanilla finishing 25th some 30.53mins off the stage lead is the biggest loser on the day…but all can change in the blink of an eye tomorrow for stage three orbital Al Qaisumah to Al Qaysumah.