Toby Price: “You get four flat tyres and your day is done”

Dakar 2025 | Stage 5 | ALULA > HAIL
January 9 th 2025 - 19:33 [GMT + 3]

Toby Price, a two times winner of the Dakar on a bike, is discovering the particularities of the Ultimate class, alongside another two times bike category winner Sam Sunderland, especially how to mook after the vehicle’s tyres. After an eleventh placed finish on stage 5, the Australian and his English co-pilot are 26th in the provisional general classification.  

“We had a much better day today, but yesterday killed us. It is what it is, unfortunately it didn’t work this time round. I’m just disappointed because I let everyone down who’s on the side of the car who made all this possible. We’ll just try and get good stage results now and take it from there. It hurts for the moment, but we’re looking forward to the rest day tomorrow. Today’s stage was not too bad. We got through it, we lost some time but we were a long way back. We’re just in management mode at the moment. We didn’t really have enough tyres after yesterday’s stage, so we just tried to get through and keep it safe. We’re looking forward to the rest day tomorrow and the rest of next week. Hopefully we can do well on some stages and see what we can do. On the 48 HR Chrono stage I did 940 kilometres on all the same tyres and didn’t get one single flat and then in the space of about thirty kilometres I got four flat tyres, I couldn’t work out why. The last one I got was in a 30 kmph speed zone, I think I dropped into a riverbed and sliced my last tyre. It’s super frustrating, a bummer for the first week. But other than that, we’ll regroup and get ready for the second week. I feel 100% safer in the car, when we’re going through those stones, I’m super glad I’m in a car. But there’s so many moving parts in these things, but when you’re rolling around on what is basically a bag of air, you’re putting your life on the line with a tyre. You can spend triple the amount, you can spend ten million dollars but then you get four flat tyres and your day is done. It is what it is. I just guess I’m bummed out for the sponsors that are on-board with it. We’ll try and see if we can get a couple of good stage results to keep them happy. It’s been a tough first week, but we’ll keep at it”.

Toby Price-stage5-eng
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