Skyler Howes\u00a0has a flair for showmanship and not just when curling his moustache and donning a cowboy hat. Since his debut on the\u00a0Dakar Rally, he has always been in the spotlight but has kept his fans waiting for a long time before winning his first special on his eighth participation to become the 9th\u00a0American\u00a0biker to win a stage. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The route to\u00a0Al Henakiyah\u00a0lent itself perfectly to a show of force from the\u00a0Californian, who is used to success on the\u00a0Vegas to Reno\u00a0race or the\u00a0Sonory Rally, which both boast similar terrain. His charge through stage 11 will not enable him to improve on his best final result (3rd in\u00a02023) but he is still set to finish the rally at the foot of the podium.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The\u00a0Honda\u00a0clan has cooked up a strategy to try to secure\u00a0Ricky Brabec\u00a0a third outright triumph on the\u00a0Dakar… starting with giving up his place at the top of the overall rankings!\u00a0Adrien Van Beveren\u00a0took advantage of his position as stage opener to wait for his\u00a0American\u00a0teammate after refuelling in order to share the openers\u2019 bonus points with him. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
However,\u00a0Brabec’s manoeuvring became more subtle, even daring, towards the end of the stage, as he chose to ease off in order to secure a starting position for tomorrow behind his main rival\u00a0Luciano Benavides, even if it meant relinquishing the lead. The\u00a0Americans\u00a0definitely like to play poker with the rally but it cannot be denied that it provides plenty of suspense!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As for\u00a0KTM, the\u00a0Argentinean\u00a0new rally leader now indeed finds himself with a poisoned chalice. The pressure is mounting on\u00a0Luciano Benavides, who now leads the overall rankings by just 23\u2019\u2019 and will be forced to start tomorrow\u2019s decisive stage with\u00a0Brabec\u00a0hot on his heels due to a starting position 6 minutes afterwards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While the news is reassuring concerning\u00a0Daniel Sanders, who was able to finish the stage despite injuring his shoulder yesterday, the\u00a0Australian\u00a0only managed to achieve the 13th best time of the day and will be unable to provide any support to\u00a0Benavides\u00a0tomorrow. This role could fall to\u00a0Edgar Canet, who, due to his third place finish today, will start the special 3 minutes ahead of him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Skyler Howes\u00a0has a flair for showmanship and not just when curling his moustache and donning a cowboy hat.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8026,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[311,310],"class_list":["post-8025","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newsbeat","tag-motorsports","tag-rally"],"aioseo_notices":[],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Dakar-Rally_compressed-1.jpg",2002,1127,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Dakar-Rally_compressed-1-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Dakar-Rally_compressed-1-300x169.jpg",300,169,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Dakar-Rally_compressed-1-768x432.jpg",640,360,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Dakar-Rally_compressed-1-1024x576.jpg",640,360,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Dakar-Rally_compressed-1-1536x865.jpg",1536,865,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Dakar-Rally_compressed-1.jpg",2002,1127,false],"morenews-large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Dakar-Rally_compressed-1-825x575.jpg",825,575,true],"morenews-medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Dakar-Rally_compressed-1-590x410.jpg",590,410,true]},"author_info":{"info":["admin"]},"category_info":"Newsbeat<\/a>","tag_info":"Newsbeat","comment_count":"0","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Dakar-Rally_compressed-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8025","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8025"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8025\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8027,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8025\/revisions\/8027"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8026"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8025"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}