I didn’t think about the position or the result I just gave my 100 percent over the whole stage and tried to enjoy the day. Kevin Benavides: “It’s been an amazing day! I just focused on every kilometer from the first to the last. With Price rounding out the top two overall, it was an incredible fortnight of racing for the whole Red Bull KTM Factory Racing team. The final result gave Benavides victory and an incredible 19th Dakar win for KTM. With navigation proving critical on the final day of competition, by missing a couple of waypoints and being forced to turn back, Toby Price finished the stage 55 seconds down on Benavides. The two KTM 450 RALLY riders both gave everything they had over that final special, but there would be just one winner – Kevin Benavides.
With the start order reversed for stage 14, Benavides set off second to last, with Price just three minutes behind.
The Dakar was going to come down to a 138-kilometer sprint on the final day. Thankfully Matthias sustained no serious injuries.Īt the close of that 13th day, Kevin Benavides, who had topped the timesheets despite stopping to aid the injured Walkner, trailed his teammate Price by just 12 seconds. Matthias Walkner was also forced to withdraw one day later when a crash near the start of the special on day 13 resulted in the Austrian being airlifted to hospital. The 21-year-old future star was forced to throw in the towel on day 12. Although he was able to continue, the injuries he sustained would eventually rule him out of contention. Mason Klein, who had already topped stage two, unfortunately suffered two crashes on the first day back after the rest day. And while the navigation was perhaps less demanding, the ability to read the terrain became far more important. Going into the second week of racing it was all about the dunes. Rounding out the top 10 after stage eight was Matthias Walkner – not the position the Austrian wanted to occupy, but after crashing on day two and injuring his wrist, the fact that he was even able to continue was outstanding. One place behind Mason, Toby Price was less than two minutes behind the leader on what was already shaping up to be one of the tightest Dakars in history. Kevin Benavides was lying second overall and was closely followed in third by the young, up-and-coming American Mason Klein. The first week of racing at this year’s Dakar went incredibly well for the KTM-mounted desert warriors.
Add that to the two weeks of early mornings and minimal sleep and you end up with not only one of the most physically demanding events in the world, but one of the most mentally draining, too. If the unforgiving Saudi desert wasn’t tough enough, the heavy rains that fell over the first week of racing threw another challenge into the mix with flooded rivers and muddy lake beds making racing and navigating even tougher. Riders covered well over 8,000 kilometers in total, and close to 5,000 of them were raced against the clock. The 2023 event will undoubtedly go down in history as one of the toughest ever for a variety of reasons. His Red Bull KTM Factory Racing teammate Toby Price, who eventually placed second, can hold his head high, as the two-time Dakar Champion fought right to the finish, ultimately losing out by an agonizing 43 seconds. It was Kevin Benavides’ incredible consistency and speed over the 14 stages of racing that paid off, with the Argentinian racer coming from 12 seconds behind on the penultimate day to clinch the win after a blinding display of riding on the very final stage. Not only that, KTM secured an incredible one-two finish with the fight for the win literally going down to the final few kilometers of the two-week-long competition. Securing victory at the 2023 Dakar Rally with Kevin Benavides, KTM secured its 19th win at the most grueling and iconic of all off-road events.
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