Toby Price leads Morocco Rally after stage 3

Red Bull KTM factory wrapped up stage three of the Morocco Rally, and after the marathon stage where teams are denied any support and camp overnight in the desert, Toby Price leads the overall standings by one minute 58 seconds.

Toby Price finished a close and tactical second place in Wednesday‰Ûªs stage, tucked in behind Argentine rider Kevin Benavides and trailing by only 51 seconds. He now starts second on Thursday, which relieves him of the duty of navigating to open the track for stage four.

After two tough days in the desert, where riders had to save tires and look after their bikes through both stages, the three-man team were pleased to have the marathon stage behind them. Both days were long and exhausting, particularly Tuesday when they traveled from the ocean into the dunes some 554 km, just under 300 of which was under the clock. After a night camping in the desert they then had to tackle Wednesday‰Ûªs third stage of 390 km, including the 315 km timed special.

The start of Tuesday‰Ûªs stage was also not without a flavor of adventure after riders were held up by the military after the first 50 km and organizers later neutralized the first section and took the result only from the first checkpoint.

"After the holdup I put in some extra time on my tires to go flat out to make up the time, but other than that it was good," Price said.

"We navigated at the front all day and I didn‰Ûªt make any navigation errors, only small things, so we got through well. Stage three today was definitely difficult with the navigation.

"I was glad to be at the finish line on both days and to get the marathon out of the way. The bike is in good shape and we‰Ûªre looking forward to stage four. Tomorrow will be difficult but I go off second behind Kevin (Benavides) and at the moment I‰Ûªm battling with Sam so it‰Ûªs going to be a tight one right to the finish. As long as we can stay on the navigation and don‰Ûªt make any big errors it should be good.‰Û