Monster Energy Honda Team get their first taste of the Liwa dunes

Monster Energy Honda Team’s Paulo Gonçalves and Kevin Benavides got their Abu Dhabi adventure underway with a technical first stage. Gonçalves posted fourth and Benavides sixth in a race that promises to be tightly-fought over the coming stages.

Some three months after the Dakar, where the riders of Monster Energy Honda Team last saw real competition, the squad’s duo were back in the thick of the action today with the first full stage of the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge with 276.59 km of Special. Both Portuguese rider Paulo Gonçalves and Argentinean Kevin Benavides had a good day’s racing as they attempted to distance themselves from yesterday’s higher finishers who started out from positions behind them.

Riding in the dunes is far more difficult for the competitors who open the track, whilst those behind can retrace the tracks left ahead of them and gather vital information about the state of the course and how to make up time.

Paulo Gonçalves finished fourth on the day conceding three minutes to table-topping Sam Sunderland. Gonçalves will get a shot at clawing the time back tomorrow in another dune-filled stage in the desert to the west of Abu Dhabi.

For Kevin Benavides, getting his first chance to explore the extraordinary landscapes of the Middle Eastern country, has been something of a revelation as the young rider has the opportunity to compare the Arabian dunes to those of his native South America. Kevin opted for a steady pace today in a bid to get to grips with the CRF450 RALLY.