News 29 Aug 2016

Price second in Atacama Rally

Australian falls short of victory in Chilean desert.

Source: Supplied.

Source: Supplied.

Red Bull KTM’s Toby Price has claimed second outright at round four of the 2016 FIM Cross-Country Rally World Championship at the Atacama Desert in Chile on August 21-27.

Price fell 29 seconds shy to overall winner Pablo Quintanilla (Husqvarna) after enduring five challenging stages of dry and dusty conditions.

Stage one saw Price end the day 1m13s behind Quintanilla, however he was able to make ground throughout the second stage to take over the lead.

While leading stage three, the Dakar champion ran into difficulties with the road book, resulting in him losing valuable time and dropping to third.

“It was a long and unforgiving day and we got through pretty well.” Price commented. “We had a few little navigation errors near the end but other than that it turned out to be a pretty good day.”

Only five seconds separated Price and Quintanilla at the conclusion of the fourth stage, making the fifth and final stage a pivotal day for both riders.

Quintanilla would hold the advantage, navigating his way to the win on the final day, awarding him the overall win and championship points lead, while Price concluded the stage in third.

The outright top five positions were rounded out by Kevin Benavides (Honda), Paulo Goncalves (Honda) and Sam Sunderland (KTM).

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