Dakar Bikes, Stage 4: Barreda back in the lead with another win

After winning Stage 3 on Tuesday, Barreda was denied the overall lead when he was awarded a one-minute speeding penalty for speeding in a road section, dropping him to third behind Stefan Svitko and Kevin Benavides - who inherited his first ever Dakar stage win as a result.

But Barreda dominated Stage 4, a loop starting and ending in San Salvador de Jujuy, surpassing Honda teammate Paulo Goncalves at the second checkpoint and dominating the remainder of the 429km test.

He ended up 1m49s clear at the finish, and now has a 1m57s cushion at the head of the overall standings. Stage runner-up Goncalves moves up to second, with Benavides, fourth on the day, maintaining a Honda 1-2-3 four minutes adrift of Barreda.

Ruben Faria was best of the non-Hondas on the stage in third, the Husqvarna rider moving from eighth to fifth in the overall standings, two seconds behind overnight leader Svitko (KTM).

Opening the road, the Slovakian was the biggest loser of the stage, losing eight minutes to Barreda and dropping to fifth overall. Alain Duclos was another rider to suffer, losing 13 minutes.

The Sherco rider has dropped to 10th behind the works KTM trio of Matthias Walkner, Toby Price and Dakar rookie Antoine Meo, as well as the second factory Husqvarna rider Pablo Quintanilla.

Standings after Stage 4:

Pos.	No.	Rider	Bike	Time/Gap
1	6	Joan Barreda	Honda	10h33m20s
2	2	Paulo Goncalves	Honda	1m57s
3	47	Kevin Benavides	Honda	4m14s
4	5	Stefan Svitko	KTM	7m19s
5	8	Ruben Faria	Husqvarna	7m21s
6	14	Matthias Walkner	KTM	9m05s
7	3	Toby Price	KTM	9m53s
8	4	Pablo Quintanilla	Husqvarna	10m19s
9	49	Antoine Meo	KTM	12m52s
10	20	Alain Duclos	Sherco	13m08s