Luciano Benavides: “If I’ve won my third stage it will be incredible”

Dakar 2023 | Stage 11 | ALULA > YANBU
January 12 ^th 2023 - 13:04 [GMT + 3]

 With his third stage victory on this Dakar, Luciano Benavides is the rider with the most impressive roll of honour since the start of the rally. Tomorrow, he will open the way, a position he is unafraid of, with confidence gain from the other two days when he already led out the bikers in first position on the special.

 “Today was another really fast day. I enjoyed it a lot in the Empty Quarter. I like this kind of stage. I pushed all day long in the dunes. I feels like motocross, so I like it a lot. It was a really fun day and I think I got a good result as well. I don’t know if I won, but I think for sure that I’m in the top 3. It was hard to read the tracks, but of course I wasn’t in the starting position, so I had plenty of lines in front. You always need to be really careful with the holes, because there were many holes in the sand. I missed a few and nothing happened, I didn’t crash. Luckily, there are no issues with the bike. I was trying to take care of it and not crash, no big impacts for the wheels and for the rest, so it looks like everything is ok for tomorrow. I think it wasn’t ideal to win today, but if I have, I feel really confident with my navigation, like I did yesterday opening all the stage, so if I have to do that, then of course I’m happy to be here and if I’ve won my third stage it will be incredible”.