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In the bike category (RallyGP) of the 2026 Dakar Rally, Red Bull KTM's Luciano Benavides edged out Monster Energy Honda's Ricky Brabec by a mere two seconds to take the overall victory. The roughly 49-hour battle went down as one of the closest finishes in rally history.
Hearing about a 2-second gap, I actually gasped out loud. A 2-second gap on a circuit and one in a rally mean completely different things. A margin like this after dozens of hours of riding is something only someone who's kept eliminating hundredths-of-a-second mistakes the entire way can reach. Both Benavides and Brabec never let up on the attack until the very end. This was the real thing.
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As an ADV rider, I admire how brutal rally raid is, but there's no way I could ever do it myself.
A 2-second gap means either one could've won, honestly. Brutal luck for Brabec.
I wouldn't call it bad luck — Benavides pushed all the way to the end. That's pure skill.
Can't remember a Dakar finish this close. That's a win earned through pure grit from Benavides.
About 49 hours of total riding time and it comes down to a 2-second difference — that's basically a margin of error. Insane.
49 hours of accumulated racing all coming down to a 2-second gap at the end — that's the cruelty of the Dakar.
49 hours of racing and a 2-second gap, that's straight out of a manga. This one's going down in Dakar history.
