Australian motorcycle star Toby Price says he's ready to play catch-up after beginning to eat into the leaders' advantage thanks to his best day yet at the 2024 edition of the Dakar Rally.
The two-time winner admits he's made too many mistakes over the great race's ultra-demanding first week, but Price's experience and famed toughness may be beginning to pay dividends as he finished third in Wednesday's fifth stage.
The 36-year-old's charge on the 118km special stage between Al-Hofuf to Shubaytah left him just one minute 39 seconds behind Chilean stage winner Pablo Quintanilla and 37 seconds adrift of French runner-up Adrien Van Beveren.
His performance pushed the Red Bull KTM rider up to seventh in the overall motorcycle rankings, one place ahead of his Australian compatriot Daniel Sanders on his GasGas.
But Price is still over half an hour (31min 36sec) behind race leader, Botswanan Ross Branch, on his Hero bike, with a trio of Honda riders, led by another Chilean Jose Florimo, in hot pursuit. Sanders, meanwhile, is 37:44 behind.
"All in all, it's been a good day," Price shrugged. "We're here. And that's the main thing. If you push a little bit too hard, it can catch you out.
"The Honda guys look really strong, and Ross looks really strong too on the Hero. We've got our work cut out for us, that's for sure.
"I'm just making too many mistakes myself. We're trying to stay in the race as much as we can. We've gotta try and play a little bit of a catch-up game now and we'll see how it goes."
It was certainly less eventful than Price's fourth stage on Tuesday, when he and American Skyler Howes ended up having to stop to help out the stricken German rider Sebastian Buhler, who had crashed and needed to be flown to hospital, his race over.
🏍 True Dakar spirit 🥰
— DAKAR RALLY (@dakar) January 9, 2024
Yesterday @tobyprice87 and @skylerhowes110 stopped to help Sebastian Bühler after he crashed. Unfortunately, the german rider had to abandon the race. We wish him all the best. #Dakar2024 pic.twitter.com/Ie2nyc0Xu3
Much could change over the next two days as the race as it enters the new 48-hour Chrono stage through Saudi Arabia's Empty Quarter with the motorbikes taking a different route from the four-wheelers.
In the cars category, defending champion Nasser Al-Attiyah took the stage honours to go second overall behind home favourite Yazeed Al-Rajhi.
The stage victory was the first this year for five-times Dakar winner Al Attiyah, who has now won Dakar stages with seven different constructors, with his latest coming in a Prodrive Hunter.
