The Valencian Tosha Schareina, the brand new signing of the official Honda team, has made a splash by winning the Prologue stage (27 km of special) that opened the Dakar 2024 rally today. The Spanish driver won with an 11 second advantage over the Australian Daniel Sanders (Gas Gas).
This is the first partial stage victory for Tosha Schareina, who is participating in her third Dakar. The Valencian, who had finished in 13th position in his two previous editions (in his debut he was the 2nd best rookie, behind Mason Klein), was the fastest in a very short special, only 27 km, which served to establish the starting order of the first stage this Saturday the 6th.
Schareina left Sanders 11 seconds behind and Ross Branch with Hero 18 seconds behind. Fourth was his Honda teammate, Frenchman Adrien Van Beveren, 23 seconds behind.
Luciano Benavides (Husqvarna), current rally-raid world champion and winner of three stages last year, was fifth, 25 seconds behind the Valencian. His brother, the defending champion, Kevin Benavides (KTM), clocked the ninth time of the day, just under a minute from the lead (56s).
Lorenzo Santolino (Sherco), who was the best Spaniard in the Dakar 2023 (9th), achieved 12th place in the Prologue, 1m16s behind Schareina, while his compatriot from Castellón Joan Barreda, in his first experience with Hero , was 15th, 1m25s behind Tosha, after suffering a fall in the early stages of the rally.
In cars, Nasser Al Attiyah, winner of 2022 and 2023, was the first to take the start in Al Ula. The Qatari, however, finished in 12th position, a strange result, 1m01s behind the day’s winner, Mattias Ekström (Audi). Apparently, Nasser made a slight navigation error, causing him to lose his route.
However, 12th place is a good result for the Qatari, since he will start from that same position at the start of stage 1. Since the Prologue times do not count towards the general classification (according to the new FIA 2024 regulations ), all drivers will start from scratch this Saturday. So Al Attiyah will have the advantage of being able to follow the laps of his main rivals in the 414 km of the first timed special.
The Prologue was dominated by Ekström with 23 seconds over Seth Quintero, the young American (21) who is Toyota’s great hope, and 38 seconds over Sébastien Loeb, one of the great favorites to fight for the Tuareg.
The very late position of Carlos Sainz, 47th, 2m18s behind his fellow Prologue winner, was surprising. The Madrid native admitted that he had not done “a good job” due to a problem on the stage.
Nani Roma, on his return to the Dakar after missing the 2023 edition, achieved a creditable 17th place with the Ford Ranger, 1m22s behind the Swede.
The 33rd absolute position of Cristina Gutiérrez with her Challenger Taurus (T3) and the 38th of Isidre Esteve with her Toyota Hilux (T1) stood out. The young Pau Navarro (Mini) was 22nd in his debut in the top car category, and Laia Sanz took 59th place with Astara.
