Dakar Rally, Stage 11: Ricky Brabec falls to third, takes shot at KTM amid refueling drama

By Jan 14, 2021, 11:45 AM EST
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Team Honda’s Ricky Brabec lost six minutes to the overall leader Kevin Benavides in Stage 11 of the Dakar Rally and was passed by Red Bull KTM’s Sam Sunderland for second overall. Brabec will need a perfect final stage if he is going to win his second consecutive Dakar, after being the first American to win it last year.

But as he crossed the line at the end of the stage, drama unfolded.

Suffering from the effects of a fall two days earlier, Honda teammate Joan Barreda missed a refueling point at 174 kilometers. That would have incurred a penalty for the Spanish rider who was on his way to a best-ever Dakar finish. But it was only the tip of the iceberg.

“I wasn’t feeling well again this morning,” Barreda said in a release, who finished Stage 10 in second. “I don’t know if it’s because of the crash I had two days ago, I was a bit dizzy. So I ended up missing the refueling point, and I didn’t stop. Ultimately it was my mistake.”

Eventually, Barreda ran out of fuel. After a medical check, he ended the day in a local hospital.

Brabec wasn’t buying that Barreda missed the refueling station unintentionally.

“They think that it was a strategy for Joan to go ahead and skip refueling,” Brabec said. “But you know what, they’re talking crap behind our back, and I’m not OK with that. They want to play that game, then we’re going to play. Hopefully tomorrow we can clinch a podium spot, that’s about it.”

KTM’s Matthias Walkner later apologized to Honda.

Sunderland won Stage 11 and closed to within 4 minutes, 12 seconds of Benavides. It was the first stage win this year for Sunderland.

“Today I knew this was one of the last chances I had to win this race and give my all,” Sunderland said. “I ran out of water with 60ks to go and was riding like hell in the dunes. I made a few navigation mistakes but no regrets. I gave my all.”

Brabec fell to third overall, 7 minutes and 13 seconds back.

Once again, blazing the trail by being first out after the Stage 10 victory was not a winning formula as Brabec wrote in an Instagram post that he was expecting to lose time with the competition starting behind him.

“I’m fortunate to have rode really well (in Stage 10) and very unfortunate to open today,” Brabec said. “It was a tough one. We’ll do our best and stay focused. Tomorrow we’re gonna ride our ass off.”

Having lost nearly 13 minutes to the leader on Thursday, he knows anything can happen on Friday. “Today is said and done, tomorrow let’s make a final push and after a bit of drama from the orange brigade boys were fired up on this one,” he posted on IG.

One day after his Honda teammate Nacho Canejo was forced to retire, it was Barreda’s turn. He entered the stage fourth in the overall ranking, 15 minutes, 40 seconds behind the leader.

“I’m sorry, folks. I’m in the hospital performing a head scan,” Barreda said on Instagram. “The fall of two days ago when I lost consciousness for a few minutes has been billed to me today.

“I was really looking forward to continuing in the race and finishing my best, but it couldn’t have been.”

American privateer Skyler Howes started fourth after a strong Stage 10. Thursday was not as kind. Howes got stuck in a hole in the desert and lost considerable time getting back under way.

“This last bit in the dunes, I came over one wrong, just too far to the right, ended up in a hole and got completely stuck,” said Howes, who finished 25 minutes, 53 seconds behind Sunderland. “I tried to get out for a long, long time and wasted a lot of energy doing it. Really frustrating day, especially this close to the end. Was really hoping not to lose any time but lost quite a bit.”

In other divisions Thursday:

Cars: Nasser Al-Attiyah won his fifth stage of the 2021 Dakar Rally and his first since Stage 8, but he was only able to make up a little more than 2 minutes on Stephane Peterhansel, who appears to be on his way to earning a record-extending 14 overall victory.

“I’m quite happy,” Al-Attiyah said. “This is a really good feeling. At one point, I’m disappointed because my dream is to win this race in Saudi Arabia, but we still have one stage left, and you don’t know what can happen.”

Peterhansel finished second after overcoming a pair of punctures, including one in the dunes.

“Towards the end, we got lost and lost a few minutes, so a lot of stress but it’s finally a good day because it was quite a stage so to lose a little time is okay,” Peterhansel said.

Side by side UTVs (SSV)/lightweight/light prototypes: Francisco Contardo won Stage 11 and further distanced himself from second-place Austin Jones by 8 minutes, 11 seconds.

Jones finished fourth in the stage and now trails in the overall standings by more than 18 minutes.

“It was a long one,” Jones said. “We just got through it. That’s about it. Happy to be done with it.”

After losing massive time the past two days with mechanical problems, Seth Quintero finished first in the lightweight/lightweight prototype division.

“Today went absolutely amazing,” the American said after his sixth stage victory. “Just trying to pick cars off all day, and that’s what we did. The last two days were really rough and couldn’t have asked for a better day. No issues and ran a smooth, clean pace.”

Quads: Giovanni Enrico did not win his first stage of the 2021 Dakar until Stage 8. He now has two after beating Manuel Andujar to the Stage 11 checkpoint.

With his stage win, Enrico shaved a fraction off Andujar’s overall lead, but he has almost 26 minutes to overcome in the Friday’s final stage.

Trucks: Team Kamaz was back on top with Anton Shibalov beating Airat Mardeev to the checkpoint.

But it’s their teammate Dmitry Sotnikov that holds a commanding lead of nearly 40 minutes heading into the final stage.

STAGE 1 RESULTS: Carlos Sainz, Toby Price open with victories

STAGE 2: Ricky Brabec jumps to second; Andrew Short withdraws

STAGE 3: American privateer Skyler Howes takes lead

STAGE 4: Four Stages, four bike winners; Al-Attiyah wins three consecutive in cars

STAGE 5: Kevin Benavides new leader in bikes

STAGE 6: Toby Price retakes the lead; Peterhansel distances the competition

STAGE 7: Ricky Brabec captures first victory; Skyler Howes third

STAGE 8: Austin Jones takes overall lead in side by sides

STAGE 9: Toby Price retires after heavy crash; Peterhansel wins

STAGE 10: Ricky Brabec closes to within a minute of overall lead

STAGE WINS

Cars: Nasser Al-Attiyah 5 (Stages 2, 3, 4, 8, 11); Carlos Sainz 2 (Stage 1, 6); Yazeed Al Rajhi 2 (Stage 7, 10); Giniel de Villiers (Stage 5); Stephane Peterhansel (Stage 9)

Bikes: Joan Barreda 3 (Stage 2, 4, 6); Toby Price 2 (Stages 1, 3); Kevin Benavides 2 (Stage 5, 9); Ricky Brabec 2 (Stage 7, 10); Jose Ignacio Cornejo Florimo (Stage 8); Sam Sunderland (Stage 11)

Side-by-sides: Francisco Lopez Contardo 6 (Stage 3, 5, 7, 8, 9, 11); Austin Jones (Stage 1); Saleh Alsaif (Stage 2); Aron Domzala (Stage 4); Khalifa Al Attiyah (Stage 6), Sergei Kariakin (Stage 10)

Lightweight prototypes: Seth Quintero 6 (Stage 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 11); Cristina Gutierrez Herrero 3 (Stage 1, 7, 9); Kris Meeke (Stage 4)

Quads: Alexandre Giroud 3 (Stage 1, 6, 8); Nicolas Cavigliasso 2 (Stage 3, 5); Manuel Andujar 2 (Stage 4, 7); Pablo Copetti 2 (Stage 2, 10); Giovanni Enrico 2 (Stage 9, 11)

Trucks: Dmitry Sotnikov 4 (Stage 1, 2, 4, 7); Martin Macik 2 (Stage 9, 10); Anton Shibalov 2 (Stage 8, 11); Siarhei Viazovich (Stage 3); Andrey Karginov (Stage 5); Airat Mardeev (Stage 6)

Watch highlights from Stage 11 of the Dakar Rally on NBCSN at 9:30 p.m. ET today.

After 19th Indianapolis 500 win, Roger Penske never stops; focusing on Detroit, Le Mans

By Jun 2, 2023, 3:00 PM EDT
Roger Penske stops
Mark J. Rebilas/USA TODAY Sports Images
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DETROIT – Roger Penske never stops.

Just consider what the 86-year-old billionaire has accomplished last Sunday.

At 12:40 p.m. last Sunday, Penske greeted the massive crowd of 330,000 spectators at the 107th Indianapolis 500 and gave the command, “Drivers, Start Your Engines” to begin the big race. Since 2019, Penske has been the owner of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the Indianapolis 500 and IndyCar.

Over three hours later, Penske was standing on top of the Pagoda, the massive suite and command post of Indianapolis Motor Speedway, watching the dramatic conclusion of the Indy 500 with his wife, Kathy, son Greg, Penske Corp. marketing director Jonathan Gibson, and Penske Corp. president Bud Denker.

When Penske saw his driver, Josef Newgarden, cross the start/finish line as the winner, he thrust his left fist in the air in an enthusiastic fashion and celebrated with his closest associates.

“I’m up on the very top of the Pagoda and I have a screen up there with all the times of every (Team Penske) car, each lap and I have a TV and a radio that I can’t talk (to the teams) on,” Penske said. “I can go from the channels of 2 (Newgaren), 3 (Scott McLaughlin) or 12 (Will Power) just listening to where we are.

“I have my own idea to what I might have done, but when I heard (Team Penske president) Tim Cindric say we had to take our time, when he said we were on plan at 100 laps, we were actually ahead of where we wanted to be. They were saving fuel, to be in the right window, which was right on.

“It was amazing when you think about all of the things that happened. If we didn’t have that wreck on the front straightaway, it would have been different.

“It’s a crazy place. It’s rewarding. That’s why we are here to race.”

In addition to owning the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Penske is also the winningest car owner in Indy 500 history and Sunday’s win was a record-extending 19th win in the 500-Mile Race.

It was the first time Penske, the car owner, won the Indy 500 since Penske, the track owner, officially took over the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Jan. 6, 2020.

Roger Penske (Bruce Martin Photo)

With the purchase, he also put some professional distance between himself and Team Penske after calling strategy in the race for many years.

“After you have been on your face for three of four years qualifying here, it’s nice to be up again,” Penske said. “We won nine races last year, won the championship and qualified in the back half of the field. Then we came back here this year, and we worked so hard.

“Guys have better ideas than we do. You have to hand it to them. The cars are legal, I’m sure. Rocket (IndyCar technical director Kevin Blanch) and those guys aren’t going to let that happen and we don’t want it to happen.

“We have to figure out what the magic is so we can be up front at the beginning (of the Indy 500).

“You have to take the good with the bad. You have to eat crow when you have to eat crow. I’ve had good days and bad days, but the good news is we are the same team whether we win or whether we lose and that is the most important thing.

“We are committed.”

Penske was still celebrating in Victory Lane when the placard that designates his parking spot (between the Pagoda and IMS media center) was changed from “18” to “19” to signify the number of times he has won the Indianapolis 500.

“He was hoping to get to 19, and it happened,” Penske’s son, Greg, who is the Vice Chairman of the Penske Corporation told NBC Sports. “It was special for our whole team, our family, and our 70,000-plus team members around the world. And our partners. Shell, in its first race to win with renewable fuel and it happened to be their car. They have been such a great partner over the years.

“That was so exciting to see that all come together as one team.

“It’s always a great feeling to wake up and say, ‘Man, we did this as a team, and we did this together.’

“Now, we move on to Detroit and move forward. Bud Denker and the team, it will be exciting over there, too.”

On Monday night, Penske attended the Indianapolis 500 Victory Celebration at the JW Marriott in Indianapolis. About 565 miles away, Penske’s NASCAR Cup Series team was competing in the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

“I watched it until I had to go to the banquet,” Penske said Thursday morning in Detroit. “Then I had my iPhone sitting on the table there.

“With 50 laps to go, I didn’t know who to watch or what to watch while I was at the (Indianapolis 500) banquet.”

One of Penske’s NASCAR drivers, Ryan Blaney, went on to win the Coca-Cola 600.

It was yet another first for Penske – the first time he won the Indianapolis 500 and the Coca-Cola 600 in the same year. The only reason it wasn’t in the same day is because the NASCAR race had been rained out and rescheduled for the following day.

The accomplishment, however, remains impressive.

“That’s what we are here for, to set goals for other people to try to achieve,” Penske said. “The 19th win at Indianapolis was long overdue when you think about the past. It was a great race. It could have been anybody’s race.

“We were able to execute at the right time.”

Penske enjoyed more success in 24 hours than most team owners or businessmen would experience in a season, or even in a career.

But Penske immediately switched his focus to this weekend’s Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix. The NTT IndyCar Series race is the first time this event has been contested on the streets of downtown Detroit since 1991 and is a massive undertaking.

There isn’t anything too big that Roger Penske and his team can’t accomplish, however.

“The good news is we have great weather, and we will be able to showcase the people in the city that don’t normally get a chance to go to the race at Belle Isle in the past can get a chance to come here and see what is going on,” Penske said Thursday. “The economic benefit for the city is going to be terrific.

“Mike Montri, Bud Denker and Chevrolet and the whole team, what they have put together here is an amazing job. Knowing what it takes to start fresh in a city on the city streets is amazing.”

Moving the race from Belle Isle, its home since 1992, back to the streets of Detroit is a massive undertaking, but Penske said it was time to leave the Island.

“We had a lot of noise from people because we were taking Belle Isle, a place where a lot of constituents in Detroit have weddings and things like that,” Penske said. “We cleaned up the island.

“We are going to make this a big event by coming to downtown Detroit. With the support of GM and ourselves, it was a home run.

“Last week, when the mayor of Detroit and the city council took down the 25 mph street signs and put up 200 mph, that was the day when I knew that we had made it.”

Win the Indianapolis 500 win on Sunday, the Coca-Cola 600 victory on Monday and then turning downtown Detroit into a street course and stage the race this weekend, it would be easy to expect Penske to take a break afterward.

Not so.

He will be off to Le Mans for the famed 24 Hours of Le Mans Sports Car race June 10-11 with Porsche Penske Motorsport aiming for an overall victory with its 963 hybrid prototype.

“We want to win Le Mans, that is what we would like to do,” Penske said. “We have three good cars. It’s going to be competitive. The Balance of Performance, we’ll see how that works. They made some changes, but right now, I’m sure the Toyotas have the edge.

“Just to go there and compete this first year with Porsche is something we have wanted to do for a long time. It’s a quality brand, a long-term contract so we can build on it this year.”

Penske and his son Greg are constantly looking forward, instead of taking too much time to celebrate their successes.

Greg Penske with Indy 500 winner Josef Newgarden (Chris Owens/Penske Entertainment)

But both men realize what a huge success last week’s Indianapolis 500 was from both a competitive and business standpoint.

“After being stewards of the place here and all the hard work that everyone has put in and the team, what they have done to get back to winning, it was exciting,” Greg Penske told NBC Sports. “We had a lot of competition. Probably the best competition we’ve ever had to race against.

“It was exciting. To be up there and see the move Josef made and how they raced. It was quite a finish for the fans and for everybody.

“Great news. No one left. It was nice to see everyone staying and they wanted to see a great finish. That was exciting.

“It was exciting for everybody.”

The massive crowd of 330,000 fans was the largest to watch the Indianapolis 500 since 350,000 fans attended the sold-out 100th running in 2016.

It serves as proof of what can be done when people such as Penske and his staff get out and promote the event.

“The Indy 500 has always been a spectacular event,” Greg Penske said. “People want to come. It’s Americana. It’s amazing when you take a look at it. The people that came here from 50 different countries and all around the world.

“There is nothing like it. To get this many people to come in, but it’s still one guest at a time. That is something that is really important to us. Every experience is a good one. We have to keep working on that. I’m sure there will be opportunities for us to execute and get even better.”

The day after the Indianapolis 500, Roger Penske spoke to a small group of reporters during the annual Indianapolis 500 victory photo shoot at the Yard of Bricks.

He emphasized it wasn’t just the size of the crowd, it was also the changing face of those in attendance.

“That was some crowd,” he said. “And it was real.

“Owning the track is something we have done over the years. When (former IMS owner) Tony George came, I didn’t realize when I said yes, what I was really signing up for.

“What we signed up for was to make it better and make it a place where everybody wants to come and have fun. The demographics, so many kids coming out here with their families.

“I stood out at Turn 3 here earlier in the week and watched those cars go into Turn 3 at 240 miles an hour and to think you can go out there for $45 with your kids and watch it. It costs me more than that to go to a movie in Detroit than to sit out there.

“This is what we have to do. It’s generational. People come here. They want to keep their tickets. If we can make it fun and exciting as it was yesterday at the end, not many people left. It was amazing that not many people left.”

Roger Penske with his wife, Kathy, at the Indy 500 awards ceremony (Bruce Martin Photo)

Penske is involved in all aspects of his business. He revealed that he used helicopters to take overhead shots of the crowd before and after the race to help improve crowd control in future Indianapolis 500s.

“We had a helicopter every half hour from 7:30 a.m. on taking pictures so we could sit down as a team and look exactly how the place filled up and how it was at closing,” Penske explained. “We can look at where we had pinch points. That’s the most important thing, to make it easier to get in and easier to get out.

“Over in the Snake Pit, there are some things we can do where people can sit on the mounds.

“We had two screens on the back straightaway that were temporary. I want to put a big screen on the back of the grandstands coming off Turn 4 – a big one – so that when you are on the viewing mounds, you can see. Those are the things we have to do and that will only make it a better experience and to grow it.

“I don’t want to take any credit for filling it up. What we are doing is trying to take a product that took 106 years to build into what it is. All we are trying to do is sustain it and bring it up to the current standards from the standpoint of expectations. Whether it’s you as a family or kid, it’s whatever you have.

“That’s how we run our business.

“No risk, no reward. It was great.”

Penske has taken plenty of risks during his career, but he is calculated with every move that he takes when guiding his race team, or his business empire.

That is why he is able to enjoy the tremendous rewards that come with his success.

“Every victory for us and for the team and for my father, what he has been able to build over the years, it is exciting for all of us,” Greg Penske admitted. “He feels the same way.

“Being on top of the podium, as we all know, never gets old. But it takes execution, and it takes hard work.

“The teams here and how they commit to be here and make sure we are successful; I’ve never seen it so competition. Think about qualifying being 14 inches over 10 miles. That’s a pretty close margin.

“It’s always exciting. For him to continue to drive and to work the way he does is pretty amazing.

“I’ve had a front row seat for that and I’m very excited to be a part of it.”

Follow Bruce Martin on Twitter at @BruceMartin_500