Already a winner the day before in Cachi, Joan Barreda did not lower the pace on the way to Termas de Rio Hondo with a second consecutive Dakar Rally stage victory.

Already quick when leading the rally, Barreda becomes almost untouchable when he is free from any pressure. The Spaniard seemed to have decided to show that he was indeed the quickest rider on the 2015 edition by picking up a second consecutive triumph, his fourth since the start.

The most noteworthy performance on Thursday came from Paulo Gonçalves, who has still not given up on final victory. The Portuguese rider regained 2m23s from Marc Coma to move within 5m12s in the general standings.

However the efforts of the Team HRC rider could be in vain because he will receive a 15-minute penalty in the general standings for having changed his engine. He borrowed this engine from Barreda, who in turn had benefited from the sacrifice of Jeremias Israel Esquerre – forced to exit the race after giving the engine of his Honda to his teammate during this marathon stage.

Coma still remains in the lead, but will have to pull out all the stops over the next two stages if he decides to keep the same engine on his KTM. Ivan Jakes had a field day with third place, 1m35s behind the stage winner, which is his best result since the start of the rally, finishing ahead of Ruben Faria and Toby Price.

The Australian took advantage of Pablo Quintanilla feeling very ill to regain more than two minutes and thus climbs onto the provisional podium in the general standings on debut in the gruelling event.

Simon Pavey and Llewellyn Sullivan-Pavey completed the second part of the marathon stages in 69th and 70th, now ranked 63rd and 62nds respectively in the overall classification.

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