Toby Price never knows when to give up - and the Australian motorcycle great perhaps saved his very best to last as he scrapped to seal a top-five finish at the Dakar Rally.
Two-time winner Price ended up finishing second on his Red Bull KTM in the 12th and final stage on Friday, which pushed him up one place from sixth to fifth in the final overall standings.
By his own sky-high standards, having achieved six previous podium finishes in the world's most demanding rally, it may not have been the result the 36-year-old Hillston rider was after at the end of two brutal weeks in the Saudi Arabian desert.
But the man who three years ago had to be airlifted to hospital with a broken leg in this race after a horror crash was left grateful for managing to get to the finish line, just over 45 minutes behind the American winner Ricky Brabec, who has become, like Price, a two-time champ.
"Itâs definitely been a really tough event this year," reported Price at the finish in Yanbu as he reflected on how he had effectively had to play catch up from the start in the quest for a hat-trick of titles after an expensive navigational error on the opening stage .
"Thankfully, itâs always a good result when you can get to the finish line in one piece at the Dakar, and here we are, happy and healthy.
"Looking back over the week, we were never far off the pace, just made a few too many mistakes out there and that can cost some serious time at Dakar.Â
"The whole team have been incredible over the two weeks and have worked so hard. Itâs a shame weâve not been able to reward them with a podium."
Price had found the last week ever more demanding on the stony terrain, with snapping pain in his wrists, but he was saluted by his team manager Andreas Holzl for his staying power.
For on the final 328km stage, he and teammate Kevin Benavides, the 2023 champion, enjoyed a KTM one-two, with the Argentine taking the honours to lead home Price by exactly one minute.
It meant that after 4709km of racing against the clock, Benavides ended his defence by finishing fourth in the standings, over six minutes ahead of the Australian.Â
In 2023, they had only been separated by 43 seconds as the Argentine won the closest-ever finish to the race.
Price's Australian colleague Daniel Sanders, on his Red Bull GasGas bike, ended up a creditable eighth in the standings, but nearly one-and-a-quarter hours behind Brabec.
