The European pilot signed his victory with a time of 6:21:06, escorted by the Cordovan Pablo Copetti (+3:35), who competes under the American flag, and the Mendoza Francisco Moreno Flores (+5:29).
In the category cumulative table, andujar is in second place, 7:28 behind giroudwhich anticipates a head-to-head between the last two champions until the end of the rally, on January 15.
Andújar, 26, who runs with the shield of Boca Juniors in its antiflame and the images of Maradona, Messi and the World Cup in the helmetseeks this year a revenge for his abandonment in 2022 and at the same time increase the Argentine record of 7 coronations in quads since joining the Dakar in 2009.
For his part, Benavides, the only South American motorcycle champion (2021)suffered a small delay in the general classification on Monday, after finishing in eighth place in the stage won by the American Mason Klein (Bas World KTM)despite a 2-minute penalty.
The man from Salta, who also suffered a time surcharge (1m.), dropped from second to fourth place in the accumulated table with a difference of 2:25 compared to Klein, who displaced his compatriot Ricki Brabec (Monster Energy Honda) from first place. ).
Brabec He fell to the sixth step after being left out of the first 10 arrivals of the category, postponed by two other Argentines: Luciano Benavides (Husqvarna), twelfth, and Franco Caimi (Hero Motorsports), fourteenth.
After reaching the finish line, Caimi complained about the difficulty of the second test: “It was a very tough stage, the truth is that it was not necessary for them to make us do a stage like this on the second day of the race. It gives us a lot to rethink and see how We are going to continue, because the truth is that we are busted”.
“It was very long, with 430 kilometers of special, very physically demanding. Now we have to think about recovering a little in the remaining hours of the day to be as good as possible tomorrow,” he added in statements collected by the Motorsport site.
Source: Ambito
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