Andalucia Rally 2022: Stage win for Adren Van Beveren

The first stage of the Andalucía Rally brought a lot of direction changes along the 319 kilometres around Seville province. In this delicate game, penalties were applied to many riders. Monster Energy Honda Team rider Adrien Van Beveren was the man of the day with a stage win. He is also the new leader.

No doubt – Frenchman Adrien Van Beveren is the man of the day! This came after official results from the first stage after the prologue (technically special stage 1B). Very meticulous with the road-book and his navigation, Van Beveren got back into the Gran Dos Hermanas Racecourse bivouac as the stage winner and overall leader!

Once again the rain was not enough to minimize the dust during the second day of the Andalucía Rally. This stage was raced on fast gravel roads between fields and some off piste tracks, with a total of 319 kilometres plus 145 of liaison. David Castera from ASO was clear yesterday at the general briefing when he announced a lot of direction changes and in consequence many less visible pistes. This was in fact the major challenge of this journey, so success was the combination of being able to go fast and not to miss any note and way point from the road-book. Traps were everywhere, including stones, ruts and holes.

Today 2020 Dakar winner Ricky Brabec (USA) was the first to leave the bivouac, just before the sun-raise. He was followed by Adrien Van Beveren and Chilean José Ignacio Cornejo. Van Beveren was with a shadow of a doubt the happiest of the trio after long hours of action, rolling always in the top standings and showing here a great performance while navigating the terrain.

Tomorrow’s special stage 2 will leave Seville province in the direction of Malaga, with 335 kilometres to race and 313 km of liaison. Fast tracks are expected blessed by a desirable forecast of rain that can minimize the dust columns.

Adrien Van Beveren -“I am very happy with my stage win here in Andalucia Rally! Navigation was so difficult and technical. The road-book nearly burned me head, because this is really different from desert riding. In the end I enjoyed and my Honda CRF450 RALLY was very good in this kind of terrain, with a lot of traction when its slippery and difficult to turn. Now I am looking forward for the next stage.”

Ricky Brabec 2 - “It is clear that this is not my favorite kind of stage. It makes me feel like I don’t know how to ride a motorcycle, so I just want to get out of here safe and be ready for the Dakar. I made a couple of mistakes today, but in the end of the stage I was able to get a little bit more confident. So now I just want to stay focus for the days to come”.

José Ignacio Cornejo 11 - “This was a complicated stage for me. Navigation on the fields was a little confusing. I was going well, but then my bike got stuck and this cost me several minutes. In the second half of the stage I felt much better, even though I got a lot of dust from other riders.”

Source Monster Energy Honda Team