Source: HRC.

After spending most of the stage hot on the heels of Marc Coma, Joan Barreda turned on the afterburners to overtake his closest rival in the final kilometres and clinch his second Dakar Rally stage win of 2015.

HRC rider Barreda had a comfortable buffer in the general classification in Chilecito this morning, but it certainly did not dampen his appetite. The presence of Coma, a fast veteran, in his sights put the Spaniard in the ideal position to put time into the rest of the field.

With Barreda’s fighting spirit, merely shadowing his KTM rival was never an option, and a late surge was enough to earn Joan a second stage win in the 2015 edition and deal Coma a severe blow. However, the four-time Dakar winner knows there is still lots of racing left and is set to fight back from the very next stage.

Paulo Gonçalves faded on Wednesday to concede a quarter of an hour, seemingly unable to compete with his teammate, just like Ruben Faria, who lost 11 minutes today and now lies 23 minutes back in the general classification.

Jordi Viladoms, fourth in today’s stage, also lost over 10 minutes and now sits in fifth place overall, whereas Pablo Quintanilla signed an amazing performance as the Dakar came to his homeland in Chile and climbed up to sixth place in the general classification.

Rookie Matthias Walkner was the big loser of the day, conceding 23 minutes and falling off the provisional podium, while Laia Sanz had good reason to be cheerful after finishing an excellent eighth.

Top of the Aussies Toby Price was 17th on stage and now sits seventh overall, while Llewellyn Sullivan-Pavey was 67th on stage and is now 73rd overall, Simon Pavey was 69th on stage and 74th overall, while Clayton Jacobsen is yet to cross the final checkpoint at time of publishing.

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