A first-time win for a dedicated British rally racer.
In the last kilometers he cried like a baby. Tears of pleasure were covering his young encounter, but also all the tension held intended for 12 long days and 7, 881 kilometers that took the particular caravan of the Dakar Rally from Asuncion in Paraguay to Buenos Aires, in Argentina passing even though a week on the Bolivian Plateau at 4, 000 meters. “I nevertheless don’t believe it, I’m over the moon” were the first words associated with Sam Sunderland, winner of the bicycles category of the 2017 Dakar Rally.
Given that his debut in the 2012 edition, he had never finished the rally. This time he finished it like a winner. The records of the 27-year-old Brit, who moved to Dubai when he was 19 to train within the desert, look more like a battle bulletin than a bio of a professional rider.
His first South American journey took off on January 1st 2012 when he was only 22 years old. He finished 7th on the first stage before going out along with mechanical problems the next day. 2013 seemed like a year of consecration as he authorized on to the factory Honda Team. This individual won the Merzouga Rally, yet crashed in the last test in planning for Dakar while he was training in the Mojave Desert within California. He broke his hand and couldn’t take the start of the move. He tried again in 2014 but was forced to withdraw on Stage 4 because of mechanical issues. He then authorized with KTM and won the very first stage of the 2015 Dakar yet crashed out in Stage four. Maybe the fastest rider in the sand, he won the Morocco rally but then broke his femur in the Merzouga rally one week afterwards. He had to watch the Dakar on TV one last time.
Photograph by ASO/A. Vialatte
KTM Driver Sam Sunderland wins the first Dakar that he has ever finished.
“It’s not a very glorious record I admit, though if you look a little bit at the rear of the DNFs and the failures to begin, you can see that a lot of it has simply already been down to bad luck. This year I made a decision that the Dakar was to be the only goal. ”
People around him in the KTM squad found your pet more mature, more quiet. “I changed approach to the race. I tackled one stage at the time, without getting too many risks. ”
With all the pressure on his team mate Toby Price, the defending champion, Sunderland could race without too much pressure, at least at the beginning. The key moment arrived on Stage five when he took the direct, while the two pre-event favorites, Honda's Joan Barreda and KTM's Toby Cost, were falling out of contention.
Photo by E. Vargiolu
Sam Sunderland takes the victory home to his native England.
The Aussie was forced to retire on stage 4 after breaking his femur in the crash, while a one-hour charges for all the factory Honda riders intended for refueling outside the neutralization zone put the then-leader Barreda well down within the order and out of the fight for the particular win.
He rode an intelligent race when things got tough in the torrid San Juan, and the Chilean Pablo Quintanilla, second in the overall, damaged after getting lost in Stage 10 and running out of energy.
“It has not been easy to keep the concentration. On a special stage you ride actually 14 hours a day and I acquired so many thoughts spinning in my mind. I was repeating to myself that the Dakar is not over till the final kilometer. I was trying to convince me personally, ” Quintanilla said.
Photograph by F. Gooden
Mattias Walkner finished second on his KTM.
The eve before the last round, Rio Cuarto to Buenos Aires, 64 km of final sprint and seven hundred km of liaison to reach the podium in the Argentinian capital, Sunderland couldn’t sleep. With a final perimeter over his team mate Matthias Walkner, and 35 minute, forty second margin over Gerard Farres Guell on a private KTM, he finally sealed his first ever success giving KTM its 16th effective Dakar victory and a 1-2-3 orange colored podium.
Photo by Electronic. Vargiolu
Gerard Farres Guell managed to get a podium sweep for KTM in third.