Significant others racing together is far from a new concept. However, Ricky Brabec and Sara Price may have just unlocked the ultimate motorsport couple goal.
On Wednesday, Brabec scored his first stage win of the 2024 Dakar Rally in the RallyGP class while his girlfriend Price notched her first ever competing in SSV. Brabec had already been leading the bike overall since the Chrono Stage whereas Price continues her pursuit of the top spot in her class.
Entering Stage #10, Brabec was looking to build as much distance between him and rival Ross Branch, which had grown from less than a minute after Stage #8 to over seven the next day. Branch, along with the spoiler hopeful Martin Michek, crashed the party through the first third of the stage before Brabec found himself back in control. A navigation error ultimately dropped Branch to sixth. With Branch out of the picture for the day, Brabec led Monster Energy Honda Rally Team‘s second consecutive podium sweep as José Ignacio Cornejo and Tuesday winner Adrien Van Beveren followed; Brabec and Cornejo were separated by just two seconds, the former aided by 2:25 in time credits after catching Van Beveren early on, while he had twenty seconds on Van Beveren.
In the overall, he leads Brabec by 10:54 with two days to go.
“The day was good although the navigation wasn’t easy. In the first fifty kilometres, I was riding into the sun so that was difficult and then once I’d caught Adrien we rode together the whole way,” said Brabec. “We made some little mistakes here and there, but we came out in a good position for tomorrow and the last day. With two days left we have a little bit of a lead so let’s see what happens tomorrow.”
On the four-wheel side, Price spent much of the day chasing down Yasir Seaidan before the latter fell off the pace. She inherited the lead as the stage crossed the 300-km mark, and she successfully held off a late charge by Jérôme de Sadeleer to win by two seconds.
Price is the third female Dakar stage victor after Jutta Kleinschmidt in 1997 and Cristina Gutiérrez in 2021; Kleinschmidt eventually went on to become to date the only woman to win the Dakar outright in 2001. Incidentally, all three have raced together in Extreme E. Gutiérrez also currently sits second overall in her respective class as she trails Mitch Guthrie in Challenger by twenty-eight minutes, while Price has to make up 20:26 if she wants to catch Xavier de Soultrait.
“To be the third woman ever to win a Dakar stage and be the first American female is absolutely tremendous,” Price commented. She had spoken with The Checkered Flag in May after winning the Sonora Rally’s Road to Dakar to qualify for the race. “So grateful to even be here. It’s been a long journey for me to get here and this just tops the list.”
While Brabec and Price might be celebrating right now, Sébastien Loeb and Carlos Sainz are trying to figure out what the heck happened to them Wednesday. Both drivers suffered mechanical trouble that resulted in significant delays during the day, including a broken hydraulic jack for Loeb which forced him to change his left-rear tyre after propping his Prodrive Hunter on a rock; this added to an already near-disaster when the car broke down on the liaison heading to the start of the stage.
Although he finished ahead of Sainz to narrow the gap by seven minutes to 13:22, Loeb is on his own for the final two days after team-mate Nasser Al-Attiyah bowed out of the race following a disastrous stretch of engine trouble. Conversely, despite Sainz’s tyre punctures, his Audi team-mates Mattias Ekström and Stéphane Peterhansel were there to help him facilitate the change and reduce most of the damage.
The chaos produced a rather unique Ultimate podium as Guerlain Chicherit notched his maiden stage win of the year and first with Toyota followed by Brian Baragwanath and Benediktas Vanagas. Baragwanath scores the inaugural podium for the Century CR7 after a messy début start.
Marcelo Gastaldi recorded his maiden stage win in Challenger as he led a Taurus 1–2 with Stage #9 winner Nicolás Cavigliasso one-and-a-half minutes back.
Stage #10 winners
| Class | Number | Competitor | Team | Time |
| Ultimate (T1) | 211 | Guerlain Chicherit | Overdrive Racing | 3:19:27 |
| Stock (T2) | 500 | Akira Miura* | Team Land Cruiser Toyota Auto Body | 4:53:04 |
| Challenger (T3) | 318 | Marcelo Gastaldi | BBR Motorsport | 3:44:13 |
| SSV (T4) | 419 | Sara Price | South Racing Can-Am | 3:51:19 |
| Truck (T5) | 615 | Gert Huzink* | Jongbloed Dakar Team | 3:40:39 |
| RallyGP | 9 | Ricky Brabec | Monster Energy Honda Rally Team | 3:51:39 |
| Rally2 | 20 | Harith Noah* | Sherco TVS Rally Factory Team | 3:53:34 |
| Malle Moto | 96 | Tobias Ebster | Kini Rally Racing Team | 4:08:49 |
| Quad | 174 | Manuel Andújar | 7240 Team | 4:49:23 |
| Classic | 768 | Carlos Santaolalla* | Factory Tub | 31 points |
| Mission 1000 | 1030 | Jordi Juvanteny* | KH7-Ecovergy Team | 20 points |
Leaders after Stage #10
| Class | Number | Competitor | Team | Time |
| Ultimate (T1) | 204 | Carlos Sainz | Team Audi Sport | 41:35:12 |
| Stock (T2) | 500 | Akira Miura* | Team Land Cruiser Toyota Auto Body | 68:45:14 |
| Challenger (T3) | 303 | Mitch Guthrie | Red Bull Off-Road Junior Team | 46:01:50 |
| SSV (T4) | 411 | Xavier de Soultrait* | Sébastien Loeb Racing | 48:52:42 |
| Truck (T5) | 601 | Martin Macík Jr.* | MM Technology | 47:07:48 |
| RallyGP | 9 | Ricky Brabec | Monster Energy Honda Rally Team | 44:45:28 |
| Rally2 | 16 | Romain Dumontier | Team Dumontier Racing | 47:18:43 |
| Malle Moto | 96 | Tobias Ebster | Kini Rally Racing Team | 50:34:08 |
| Quad | 174 | Manuel Andújar | 7240 Team | 55:56:50 |
| Classic | 768 | Carlos Santaolalla* | Factory Tub | 791 points |
| Mission 1000 | 1030 | Jordi Juvanteny* | KH7-Ecovergy Team | 145 points |
