Toby Price was practically sidelined from the fight to win the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge this thursday. In the fourth stage, the Red Bull KTM man had to open the road on a day with unpredictable terrain and poor visibility, placing seventh 9m01s behind the winner, Luciano Benavides (Husqvarna).

Now in sixth overall, 8m35s behind the leader, Adrien van Beveren (Monster Energy Honda), the australian assumed that it was a negative stage for him: ‘Not the best day for me today, unfortunately. We had a delay at the start of around two hours while we waited for the fog to lift, then when we finally got going, the sun was a lot higher in the sky, making it really difficult to see while opening the stage. I did my best and didn’t make any big mistakes anywhere, but with conditions like that, on the longest stage of the race, it was tough to lead out’.

When Price found himself with someone in front of him, the task became simpler, as he himself admitted: ‘Pablo (Quintanilla) caught me around 80 kilometers in and took the lead for a while and it was so much easier to follow someone else’s tracks’. 

Finally, the KTM rider commented: ‘I brought it home safely, which is the main thing, and now there’s the fifth and final stage left to go, where I’ll give my all as usual’.