Heightened Dakar intensity the expectation for Price

Popular Australian deep in preparation for 2019 rally.

Image: Supplied.

Red Bull KTM Factory Racing’s Toby Price is anticipating greater intensity ahead of the 2019 Dakar Rally as he endeavours to earn the crown for the second time in his career.

Price, who was crowned the FIM Cross-Country Rallies world champion this year, secured the Dakar title in 2016 and has finished third on two occasions.

The popular Australian is deep in preparation for the almost two-week long rally that’s staged in South America, and believes the dune-favoured route will offer an intense race from the beginning of the event.

“Finishing the Dakar on the podium in third after only just coming back from injury was great,” Price explained. “The world championship didn’t start quite like I would have hoped, but I was able to keep my head together, stay consistent and the results finally came.

“Everything clicked in Morocco at that final round and I’m hoping for something similar in Peru. It’s going to be a bit of a strange Dakar, the route looks like about 70 percent is in the dunes and it’s going to be a real challenge, certainly no time to relax.

“In the past there have been days where you can pace yourself and still get a good result by concentrating on navigation and riding smooth – on this one I think it’s going to be flat-out from the very beginning.”

The Dakar Rally is scheduled to commence on 6 Janurary 2019, before finishing up on 17 January 2019 following 5,541 kilometres of riding.


Source: MotoOnline.com.au

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