2024 Dakar Rally results: Honda boss stage 4 as Cornejo takes over race lead

2024 Dakar Rally stage four results sees Monster Energy Honda’s Jose Cornejo take his second day win of the rally ahead of teammate Ricky Brabec – Nacho, Ross Branch and Brabec stretch clear in the overall classification as gaps emerge.

2024 Dakar Rally Stage 4 in a nutshell – Al Salamiya > Al Hofuf, Special: 299km Liaison: 332km

Stage four saw a spread-out field for much of the day, and a stretched-out leader board is emerging as we get deep into week one in Saudi Arabia. There is still, “a long way to go” and “anything can happen” but it’s beginning to feel like the people saying that are doing do out of desperation.
“It was fast with a lot of navigation”, said today’s trailblazer and birthday boy, Kevin Benavides who started first at 5:05am ahead of a long, cold slog on the road to start the special section at 8:15am. That’s some commute to work by anyone’s standards...
The Red Bull KTM rider led the way handsomely out front from start to finish of the relatively short 299km but was lucky to get there. The Argentine spotted a cut in his rear tyre at the refuelling point (187km into the test) and had to nurse/hope/pray it lasted to the end. Luckily it did and he claims third with 3:42 of time bonuses and with the kind of the form we expect from a two-time Dakar winner.
Ricky Brabec was second on the ground and steadily closed K Ben down to finish together, meaning the American had gained three minutes to place second for the day, remarkably that’s the third time he’s been P2 in four stages.
Starting from sixth place off the line, Jose “Nacho” Cornejo claimed his second stage win of the rally and with that, becomes the new race leader by just over one minute. Cementing a solid week one for him and for Honda as they dominate the top 10.
Individually in the overall, Cornejo, Ross Branch and Brabec are stretching clear in this first week of Dakar ’24. It’s what we know works here. Ride fast and navigate cleaning, sure, but also keep it consistent across the days when you are out front and laying down the tracks. These three are doing it best and the scratch times below show the bare truth of it.
Kevin Benavides is fourth scratch but 20 minutes down and seemingly not able to close that gap so far. Everyone else behind him, all those potential winners – Van Beveren, Luciano Benavides, Pablo Quintanilla, Toby Price, Daniel Sanders – don’t seem able to nail the clean stages together to get the results and make any impact.
Toby and Pablo’s truck stop. The race director warned riders to be on their toes with navigation this Dakar and today was another one to keep tabs on. But even with the notes on the roadbook, riders’ eyes can deceive them. Today Quintanilla and Price both got caught out by a random truck on the trail. “We left a river bed”, explains Pablo, “and I saw some workers with a big truck parking up which didn’t seem right. I thought that I wasn’t going in the right direction and so I went back. Toby arrived and he was the same. Finally we went back in the direction of the truck and the correct way was behind it. I got confused…”
The normally plucky Chucky Sanders was on fire today, not in the time sheets as he admits not being able to “ride fast and navigate this year so far”, and not quite literally either but with a burning feeling only those who ride dirt bikes will know about. Daniel lost his rear fuel tank cap either at the refuelling, or shortly after, and had fuel spilling out up his backside, burning his skin as he rode the second half of the stage. He likes a sting does Chucky...

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Romain Dumontier is bossing Rally 2 class finishing top 10 once again today, extending his overall lead in class to 34 minutes and is also P10 overall. The Frenchman, who won the Rally-Raid World Cup last season narrowly fended off the BAS KTM riders Mathieu Doveze and Paulo Lucci by 7 seconds and 1 minute respectively. With Konrad Dabrowski a further minute behind, these guys are splitting the RallyGP and factory riders on a daily basis.
Jane Daniels finished 54th today, 55th overall and 35th overall in Rally 2 as she continues the steep learning curve at the her first Dakar. Jane will have Mason Klein starting two palces behind her tomorrow (after his scond Kove engine change of the rally today), there’s someone to tag onto Jane!
It’s dunes for days from tomorrow as the race heads down the west of Saudi into the Empty Quarter (no prizes for guessing why it is called that). Stage five has a very short 118km special but they will cover a whopping 717 kilometres (445 miles) which equates to six or so hours in total on a loooong straight road before they start racing.