Adrien van Beveren achieved this thursday, in the fifth stage, his first victory in Dakar at the service of Monster Energy Honda. To that end, he got the better of a fight with teammate Jose Ignacio Cornejo. There was a change in overall leader, who is now Skyler Howes.
On a day composed entirely of sand and dunes, in the second half of the stage the dispute for the lead was between van Beveren and Cornejo – earlier, Toby Price (Red Bull KTM) had also led before being late in a loss of course and Mason Klein (BAS World KTM) also passed the top.
But it was even in the final kilometers that van Beveren managed to overcome Cornejo, beating him by just 13 seconds at the finish line. Klein made another high-level performance and finished third 5m13s behind the winner, while Matthias Walkner (Red Bull KTM) finished fourth at 7m30s. Price completed the top five in front of Howes (Husqvarna), who also had a navigation setback, rounded out the top five in front of Kevin Benavides (Red Bull KTM).
After the fifth stage, Howes becomes the new leader of the Dakar 2023, with a lead of just 44 seconds over Kevin Benavides. Klein climbs to third place and is 1m40s ahead, followed by Price and van Beveren. The lead before this run was Daniel Sanders (Red Bull GasGas), but he was considerably delayed and will be out of the top ten of the day.