Joan Barreda emerged victorious thanks to a great tactical display in the third stage of the Rally Dakar 2017. The Spanish rider from the Monster Honda Energy Team stormed to an overwhelming victory and tops the general rankings in the process as Briton sam Sunderland moves up to second.

After two days where navigation was not an issue, the Dakar now ups the difficulty level and begins to show the differences in quality between the competitors. The opening stretches of the third stage played out off-piste with sand and tricky fords. The were even some trial-like tracks which left many of the less-skilled aspirants trailing behind. Later, the landscape began to resemble that of the previous stages as the route approached the neutralization section. The timed special restarted at over 3,500 metres in altitude and continued uphill all the way to Jujuy.

Shortly after setting off, Paulo Gonçalves managed to overtake the two adversaries who had started out ahead, the Portuguese rider opening the track until approximately the first waypoint. Gonçalves led the field from kilometre 30 to 180. Paulo crossed the line to post the fifth fastest time on the day.

But it was Joan Barreda who stole the show on today’s stage. The Spaniard rode the Honda CRF450 RALLY at a blistering pace, with flawless navigation, to romp home with a massive surplus over the pursuing pack. In addition to the day’s first prize ‘Bang Bang’ now commands at the top of the overall standings.

Barreda said: “Today has been a great day. I’m very pleased because today the plan that we had worked out turned out perfectly. It was a tough day, as I had to push really hard all day, stay really focused, not make any mistakes and give 100% in the area of navigation at the beginning. At the waypoint at kilometre 40 I circled around a bit until Ricky showed up and gave me some references to mark the waypoint. It went really well and error-free with a very fast pace.”

Stage 3 results:

Overall standings