Image: Supplied.

Red Bull KTM Factory Racing’s Toby Price has regained the overall Dakar Rally lead following his fourth stage victory in Argentina, placing himself five-minutes and 17 seconds ahead of Portugal’s Paolo Goncalves.

Travelling from Salta to Belén, the Australian finished the stage in four hours 33 minutes and 14 seconds, testing his skills both on the open roads and amongst the sand dunes.

“The first part started out on big open roads and I think we dropped a little bit of time there,” said Price. “But just getting through it was a pretty fast track so we were looking forward to the second part where it was going to get more technical and more difficult. We did pretty well in the sand dunes and we pushed through the navigation.”

Price’s win came immediately after one rest day in Salta and race officials have promised difficult conditions and challenging navigation, particularly in the second half of the 9000km rally.

Price and his competitors will now face the first section of a second marathon stage where they must preserve energy, machinery and tires to last overnight and through to the end of Wednesday’s stage.

They will overnight in an isolated bivouac without assistance from their teams. Event organizers have promised significant challenges including almost all off-piste riding in vegetation-scattered dunes and on harder surfaces.

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