Price’s return following the rest day was not without its familiar pattern as those who began up front for the 686-kilometre journey to Haradh conceded time to their rivals.
Ross Branch – winner of Stage 8 – and Mason Klein were among those to lose precious time; the pair riding together for much of the stage and even colliding with one another as the finish approached.
The unpredictable sand dunes again made life difficult for the field, though Price displayed expert navigational nous to finish second, 1’02” behind winner Luciano Benavides, and 1’55” ahead of Howes.
Benavides and Husqvarna teammate Howes, too, tackled the course in unison but the latter could not prevent Price from what was one of his most impressive performances yet.
“It’s been a good day. The boys looked like they got lost just before refuelling. I navigated through that really well,” Price of Red Bull KTM explained.
“We were just trying to push really hard today and the next lot of stages are just going to be sand, I think, so all in all, it felt really good today. It was nice to get a good rest day in and come out for a good hit today.
“We’ll wait and see – there’s still plenty of racing to go. Everything felt great today. It was a little bit of a tricky one for navigation. I did go a little bit right just from the lines that I’d seen and was starting to notice we were going off the course a little bit. So, once I got a little bit close to the way point, I knew we were too far to the right and kind of got a little lucky.
“I went across one big bank and could see two trees that were marked with the way point. Basically, I just hoped and prayed that it was the right one and went in that direction and it validated pretty much straight away.
“All in all, we’re happy, but there’s still a long way to go.”
Honda’s Joan Barreda, competing under his own ‘Monster Energy JB Team’ banner, was not as fortunate on the sand, going down 16 kilometres into the first special and requiring an airlift to the hospital in Riyadh.
The Spaniard entered the day eighth overall but will now join Sam Sunderland (GasGas) and Ricky Brabec (Monster Energy Honda) on the list of stars to depart the Dakar after sustaining a reported back injury.
“A few boys had some crashes today, so it’s not over until we get to that finishing line,” Price said.
“I saw the crash – I didn’t see Barreda crash, but I saw he had crashed and saw him laying there. The first two guys who started in front of me had stopped for him, so there was no point for me to get involved. I just slowed down and tried to give a thumbs up to see if they were all good and everyone kept waving us on.
“It’s tough to get this far into the race and have that happen. It’s not the greatest, that’s for sure. At the end of the day, you can have a little bit of luck go your way.
“All in all, we made a good stage, where I thought we were starting to go off cap a little bit and too far to the right, but we were able to fix that mistake pretty quickly. We just charged all day and always hoped for the best. All in all, it’s come out pretty good.”
Fellow Australian Dan Sanders (GasGas), meanwhile, finished the day 19’41” adrift of Benavides in 20th position and now trails Howes by 23’47” heading into the tenth stage of the iconic rally raid.
Catch the stage highlights tonight from 5pm (AEDT) on SBS and any time on SBS On Demand.
