Red Bull KTM’s Marc Coma continues to lead the 2014 Dakar Rally, second in Stage 6 on Friday behind Sherco’s Alain Duclos.

Duclos won by a minute and 15 seconds from Coma, however the latter now enjoys a 42m17 lead in the overall classification from Team HRC’s Joan Barreda, who was fourth in stage.

“It is true that we did not have the same extreme conditions of the previous days,” Coma said. “This allowed us to tackle the stage in a less demanding way.

“But in any case, it was still a special 400 km with some navigation and 15 km of extreme enduro, which complicated things quite a lot.”

For Coma’s factory teammate Chaleco Lopez it was the end of the road for this year’s race. He crashed at a triple caution, a high drop off area, and sustained some wrist and hip injuries, for which he was being treated at the bivouac medical center.

Troy O’Connor is leading Australian rider of the trio remaining, sitting 44th overall from Allan Roberts in 47th and Shane Diener, who’s rebounded up to 57th at the halfway point.

Sadly, it was today confirmed that State 5 claimed the life of Belgian Eric Palante, between Chilecito and San Miguel de Tucuman. The circumstances of his death are yet to be determined.

2014 Dakar Rally
Argentina-Bolivia-Chile

Stage 6 results:
1. Alain Duclos 4h21m34
2. Marc Coma +1m15
3. Michael Metge +1m49
4. Joan Barreda +2m22
5. Cyril Despres +2m55
6. Helder Rodrigues +4m21
7. Stefan Svitko +7m46
8. Jakub Przygonski +8m12
9. Jordi Viladoms +10m26
10. Jeremias Israel Esquerre +11m13

Overall standings (after Stage 6):
1. Marc Coma 23h08m00
2. Joan Barreda +42m17
3. Alain Duclos +1h00m58
4. Jordi Viladoms +1h08m09
5. Jeremias Israel Esquerre +1h33m28
6. Olivier Pain +1h43m08
7. Jakub Przygonski +1h49m59
8. Helder Rodrigues +2h01m24
9. David Casteu +2h12m05
10. Daniel Gouet +2h17m26

Click here for detailed results