Toby Price leads second stage of 2017 Dakar

Last year’s Dakar champion, Price moves up 16 places to take the lead in stage 2

Stage one leader and TVS Sherco factory rider, Juan Pedrero Garcia kicked off the 275 km long stage two. He was followed by Honda factory racing riders Ricky Brabec, Michael Metge and Paulo Goncalves. Today's route starts from San Miguel de Tucuman in Argentina and is a dirt stage through a region the locals call Chaco. The route consists of a lot of fast sections where riders routinely touch speeds of 180kmph. The entire stage is actually an 803 kilometres long with the 275km timed stage in between.

Last year's Dakar winner Toby Price who had kept a conservative pace in stage one and started stage two in 17th position.

By the end of Stage two, Toby Price was comfortably in the lead. Teammate Matthias Walkner came in second trailing Toby by 3min 22sec and Paulo Goncalves finished third. Xavier de Soultrait too displayed excellent form, starting the stage in 10th place and eventually finishing the stage in 4th place, just 44 seconds off Walkner.

Yesterday's leader, Juan Pedrero Garcia, meanwhile slipped to 15th place. His teammate, Aravind KP had a nasty fall just a kilometre before the finish line of stage one. Aravind got cut off by a slower rider leading to a nasty spill and him sustaining two fractures in his left hand. Aravind did manage to finish stage two. Despite injuries Aravind participated in stage 2 and in the last parts towed teammate Adrien Metge for 70 kilometres to the finish. This had him lose time and drop down to second last position in the leaderboard standings. His teammate, Adrien Metge meanwhile is just 5 places ahead.

CS Santosh meanwhile finished in 40th position, climbing up six places. His, teammate Joaquim Rodriguez misjudged one puddle on the road and crashed into it. The crash had his GPS failing which let to reduced pace and eventually saw him finish in 23rd place.