AUSTRALIAN Toby Price has clocked up another top five finish on the eighth day of the Dakar Rally as the competitors tackle the event’s ‘marathon’ stages in Bolivia.
Price ended the motorcycle category’s seventh stage in fifth place, just under two minutes off the pace of stage winner Paulo Goncalves.
The stage marks the first part of the Dakar’s marathon stage, a two-day affair where competitors can’t be helped by their support crews at any point.
The opening 321 kilometre test took the bikes from Iquique in Chile across the Bolivian border towards Uyuni, around salt plains and up into mountainous ridges nearing 4,000 metres in altitude, along the stage the cars tackled on Sunday.
The cars, meanwhile, hit the second part of the marathon stage, a gruelling 784 kilometre route taking drivers across the high-altitude Salar de Uyuni salt flat, then back across the Pampa Del Tamarugal plains on their way back into Chile towards the sand dunes outside Iquique.
Dakar newcomer Yazeed Al Rajhi excelled to take his first Dakar stage win, backing up a second on the previous day to consolidate his third position overall, while Nasser Al-Attiyah finished third to maintain his lead of the event.
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