News 3 Sep 2018

Final stage victory credits Price runner-up in Desafio Ruta 40 rally

Australian promoted to second in the Cross Country Rallies World Championship.

Source: Supplied.

Victory in the final stage of the Desafio Ruta 40 in Tucuman, Argentina, has credited Australian Toby Price second overall in the fourth stop of the 2018 FIM Cross Country Rallies World Championship.

The Red Bull KTM Factory Racing narrowly missed out on victory, finishing just six seconds shy of eventual victor Paulo Goncalves (Monster Energy Honda Team).

The result, which marks the Queenslander’s second-consecutive runner-up result in the world championship, has now promoted him to second in the standings, just eight points behind leader Pablo Quintanilla (Rockstar Energy Husqvarna Factory Racing) with a round to spare.

“We pushed right from the start to try and make up the time to Paulo [Goncalves],” Price explained. “Everything went well on the stage – the bike was good and I was really pleased with my riding. I tried my best but unfortunately it wasn’t quite enough and I lost out on the overall by the smallest of margins.

“All-in-all the rally has been good, the team have once again done an excellent job and our performance has been really consistent over the last couple of races here in South America. We’ve earned some good points for the championship, so we’ll see what happens at the final round.”

The 2018 FIM Cross Country Rallies World Championship is set to conclude on 3-9 October in Morocco, which will lead into preparations for the prestigious Dakar Rally in early 2019.

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