Following on from his second place in the rally’s short opening prologue, where he completed the nine-kilometer special just one second from the win, Benavides carried his speed into stage one to finish as runner-up after over three hours of racing. In the overall classification, Luciano lies just one second off the lead of the event.
Luciano Benavides: “It’s been a really long stage actually. At the beginning, we started out through some riverbeds and then after that there was a lot of pistes, so it was very fast and very slippery. We destroyed the tyres today and thankfully it didn’t cost me as much time as some other riders. There wasn’t too much navigation today, so I just kept my head down and stayed safe. It all went well, I got second place, and now I’m looking forward to tomorrow.”
2023 Desafio Ruta 40 – Stage 1 Provisional Classification
1. Tosha Schareina (Honda) 3:00:12
2. Luciano Benavides (Husqvarna) 3:00:29
3. Adrien Van Beveren (Honda) 3:01:45
4. Toby Price (KTM) 3:03:29
5. Ross Branch (Hero) 3:03:38
6. Ricky Brabec (Honda) 3:06:52
2023 Desafio Ruta 40 – Provisional Overall Classification [After Stage 1]
1. Tosha Schareina (Honda) 3:55:00
2. Luciano Benavides (Husqvarna) 3:55:01
3. Adrien Van Beveren (Honda) 3:56:09
4. Toby Price (KTM) 3:58:17
5. Ross Branch (Hero) 4:01:32
6. Ricky Brabec (Honda) 4:02:32