Price expected to lose time on Dakar Stage 4

Red Bull KTM’s Toby Price admits he expected to lose time on Stage 4 of the Dakar Rally, having dropped back to 16th overall.

The two-time Dakar champion was second onto the road for the longest special of this year’s event and, with the challenge of navigating for himself and effectively the rest of the Bikes field, set the 29th-fastest time.

He is now back to 43:36s off the pace, with GasGas Factory Racing’s Sam Sunderland still on top of the overall classification.

“Stage 4 hasn’t gone too badly,” said Price.

“Setting off near the front meant we lost a bit of time, but we expected that, especially after such a long stage.

“All-in-all I got through the stage pretty well, I made a couple of small mistakes, but was able to keep a good pace and a good rhythm, so happy days.”

Red Bull KTM team-mate Matthias Walkner is up to second overall, exactly three minutes behind former KTM rider Sunderland.

Kevin Benavides rounds out the top 10 on another of the Austrian marque’s factory entries.

Stage 5 starts this afternoon (AEDT).