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Dakar Stage 7: Sunderland storms back into podium contention with stage win

Published: 14 January 2019 Updated: 14 January 2019
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San Juan to San Juan Total 240 miles with 201 mile Special stage

Having lost over 20m on stage six, Sam Sunderland’s dream of repeating his 2017 Dakar victory appeared to been brought to a premature halt, but after taking a stunning stage seven win he has now put himself back into contention. 

Starting the stage 12th, the factory KTM Brit had the advantage of having tracks to follow across the Peruvian desert, but it was a navigational error by his rivals mid way through the stage that allowed him to take significant chunks of time out of the race leaders. 

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The convincing stage win means he has now moved up to fourth position 9m 59s off new race leader American Ricky Brabec onboard the Monster Energy Honda.

Sunderland said: “I’m pleased with today, it’s gone really well and it feels good to get some time back on the leaders. Obviously, yesterday I was really disappointed. I opened the stage well but lost time after damaging my rear brake. That upset my strategy a little but then today, I decided to use that frustration to my advantage and push as hard as I could right from the start. I did lose a little time right at the end when it took me a couple of minutes to find a WPC, but overall I’m happy with how I rode the stage. The guys made a few small changes to the suspension on my bike last night and I am really grateful for that. It seems to have helped because the bike felt great today. Tomorrow we start with the fastest cars and trucks, which will make things even more unpredictable again, so we’ll see how we go.” 

With Max Hunt out of the race, Richard Main is the only other surviving Brit alongside Sunderland. The 53 year old Redline KTM rider ended the stage in 88th position meaning that he is now 83rd overall with three stages remaining.

 

Stage 7 result

1          Sam Sunderland                      KTM                 3h 51m 41s

2          Ignacio Cornejo                       Honda             + 1m 51s

3          Ricky Brabec                           Honda             + 6m 30

4          Adrien Van Beveren                Yamaha           + 9m 40s

5          Luciano Benavides                  KTM                 + 11m 19s

6          Andrew Short                          Husqvarna       + 11m 29s

 

Overall result

1         Ricky Brabec                           Honda             24h 48m 02s

2          Toby Price                               KTM                 + 6m 55s

3          Adrien Van Beveren                Yamaha           + 7m 47s

4          Sam Sunderland                      KTM                 +9m 58s

5          Pablo Quintanilla                    Husqvarna       + 9m 59s

6          Kevin Benavides                      Honda             + 16m 15s

By Michael Guy

Sports Editor - If you’re looking for sport insight that’s got its finger firmly on the pulse and gets to the very heart of the action with the fattest contacts book in bike sport (rather than simply relying on watching TV coverage and hoovering up what other people are saying on social media) – then Michael is your, erm, ‘guy’.   An integral part of MCN’s in-depth sport coverage for over twenty years, Michael has been a fixture in every major bike sport paddock, and a few minor ones, too. He has spent a significant portion of his life living in the World Superbike global travelling circus, inside the British Superbike paddocks all around the UK, as well as traipsing the corridors of power within MotoGP and regularly making the Isle of Man a working destination for the legendary TT.   Not only is he the consummate racing aficionado and journalist, but he’s also appeared on numerous podcasts, has delivered live race commentary from the booth, and has competed in trials, enduro, rally and track racing to a high level (with plenty of trophies and scars to show for his efforts, too).  I you want to be in the know, Michael and the MCN sport team will get you close enough to the biggest stories in racing to be able to tell if they brushed their teeth this morning.