Dakar 2022: Toby's Stage 10-12 Recap! 🇦🇺
STAGE 10: 1st
6th Overall
Wadi Ad-Dawasir ➡️ Bisha
A long, 759-kilometer day in the saddle lay ahead of the riders as they entered stage 10 of the rally from Wadi Ad Dawasir to Bisha.
The 375km timed special was mostly made up of fast sandy tracks, with a couple of dirt sections and dunes adding to the mix. Although navigation was relatively straightforward, it was still easy to make a costly mistake when picking a route through the stage.
Despite his relatively late start position into the special, Price decided to remain completely focused on his roadbook throughout the stage. The tactic paid off as the two-time Dakar champ delivered a near-faultless run through the challenging stage, slowly moving up the order and taking the lead on time by kilometer 250.
Toby’s win moves him up to sixth in the provisional rally standings where he trails the current event leader by just under 28 minutes. A sizeable gap, but one the Aussie hopes to reduce over the final two days of racing.
“It’s been a really good day for me today. I focused on my roadbook the whole way and did a good job with my navigation with only a couple of small mistakes over the whole stage. I’ve moved nicely up the order overall, but there is still a bit of a gap to the front guys. As we know, anything can happen in rally, so I’ll give it my all for these last two days and we’ll see where we end up.”
STAGE 11: 28th
10th Overall
Bisha ➡️ Bisha
After his win on Stage 10, Price had the unenviable task of opening today’s ultra-tough Stage 11.
An issue early on where a waypoint didn’t validate correctly for the Australian put him on the back foot for the rest of the special. However, using his skill and speed, the two-time Dakar Champion was able to regroup and keep pushing through the arduous terrain.
Ultimately completing the stage in 28th, Toby now lies 10th in the overall standings with one day left to race.
"It was super dusty today and navigation was tough, but I had a frustrating problem early on at kilometer four where one waypoint didn’t validate, even though I’m pretty sure I was in the right place. I had to zig-zag back and forward and thankfully in the end, even though I was on the same track, it activated. Hopefully we can have that checked, but other than that the day went ok, I felt good on the bike and arrived safely at the finish line. One more day to go tomorrow, and that will be the 2022 Dakar complete.”
STAGE 12: 2nd
10th Overall
Bisha ➡️ Jeddah
Following a tough start to this year's event when a navigation issue on stage one cost him a considerable amount of time, Price delivered day after day of solid results to fight his way back into the top-10 overall.
Placing as second quickest on the final day of racing, together with his stage win on day 10, shows that the two-time Dakar Champion has lost none of his speed or motivation.
Happy to safely complete the 2022 event without injury, Price now looks ahead to the remainder of this year’s FIM World Rally-Raid Championship.
“I’m always happy to reach the finish here at the Dakar, it’s been a really tough race this year. Losing time on that first day put me on the back foot a little for the rest of the stages, and the way things are now, any mistakes can lose you a lot of time on the others because things are so close. The terrain here in Saudi makes for a really fast race too, a lot of the stages are sprints to the finish, but the atmosphere is good and it’s a good place to be. I’m excited for 2023 already!”
