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Stage report

Dakar 2020, Stage 9: Quintanilla quickest from Price

Pablo Quintanilla took his and Husqvarna's first stage win of the 2020 Dakar Rally as overall leader Ricky Brabec gave up fewer than four minutes of his advantage.

Watch: Dakar 2020: Day 9 Highlights - Bikes and Quads

The 476km stage between Wadi ad-Dawasir and Haradh was a closely-contested affair as four riders were less than a minute apart 300 kilometres in.

Quintanilla was already ahead at that point but he was under pressure from KTM's Price and the Hondas of Joan Barreda and Brabec.

But it was the very last section of the stage where Quintanilla was able to pull away and he won the stage by 1m54s as Price secured second.

Barreda, despite a small crash during the day, was able to take third.

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Brabec was only fourth but he still has a 20m53s lead over Quintanilla in the overall standings, with Price and Barreda moving up to third and fourth respectively, both of them demoting Jose Ignacio Cornejo (Honda).

Ross Branch (KTM) was best of the rest in the stage followed by the Benavides brothers, with Kevin (Honda) narrowly outpacing Luciano (KTM) for sixth.

Matthias Walkner lost two and a half minutes right at the start of the stage, and while the KTM rider stayed on pace for much of the stage after that, he dropped to eight minutes behind just before the finish.

KTM's 2018 champion is now 37 minutes away from the leader with three stages to go.

Casale wins quads by three seconds

Ignacio Casale narrowly took the victory in Stage 9 as Alexandre Giroud gave up a 2m25s advantage he had at the last checkpoint.

Casale took his fourth stage win of the event and his overall lead is now up to 44m57s.

The Chilean rider was not fastest at any of the day's six checkpoints and was outside of the top three for most of the day, yet he crossed the finish line in first place.

He was just three seconds faster than Giovanni Enrico as the duo beat Giroud to first and second.

Casale's closest title rival Simon Vitse was eight minutes off the pace.

Standings after Stage 9 (Bikes, top 10):

Pos. Rider Bike Time/Gap
1

United States Ricky Brabec

Honda 31h59m29s
2

Chile Pablo Quintanilla

Husqvarna 20m53s
3

Australia Toby Price

KTM 26m43s
4 Spain Joan Barreda Honda 28m16s
5

Chile Jose Ignacio Cornejo

Honda 29m29s
6

Austria Matthias Walkner

KTM 37m16s
7

Argentina Luciano Benavides

KTM 41m11s
8 Argentina Franco Caimi Yamaha 1h21m04s
9

United States Skyler Howes

Husqvarna 1h24m24s
10 Slovakia Stefan Svitko KTM 1h30m35s

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