Brabec and Honda Take Dakar

Ricky Brabec Wins

American Ricky Brabec wins the 2024 Dakar Rally for Honda

Monster Energy Honda rider Ricky Brabec has claimed victory at the 46th edition of the Dakar Rally, the American’s second victory at the iconic race, ahead of Hero Motorsports’ Ross Branch and caps a dominant Dakar for Honda.

Sealing what has surely been Honda’s most dominant Dakar ever, Ricky Brabec closed out the final stage 12 of this 2024 rally in eighth place and comfortably holding off the challenge from main rival Ross Branch to complete the race in a total time of 51hrs30m08s.

The die was cast in the first week where Ricky was among three riders edging away with consistent day results. By the end of the opening week when his Honda team had equally begun to boss the overall standings (they ended up winning eight of the 12 stages in total), the super-tough “48hr Chrono” stage saw Ricky looking like a potential winner barring disaster. 

As the final week unfolded Ricky started to look in control of the tactical games being played out by other riders in contention. He waited and then pulled the pin with a couple of days to go, establishing a comfortable margin between him and main rival, Hero Motorsports’ Ross Branch.

It was a margin Ricky, the 2020 Dakar winner, held through the final stage and he can now call himself a two-time winner of the toughest bike race on the planet.

“It wasn’t easy.” Said Brabec at the finish. “The course was really tough. The competition was tough. Ross and my own team kept me on my toes. It was definitely a fight to the end for everyone. I’m really happy we’re all here and all safe and we can go home.”

All too late, the final stage brought a podium for the KTM Group riders with 2023 Dakar winner Kevin Benavides claiming it ahead of Toby Price and Rally-Raid World Champion Luciano Benavides. But it was all a bit too late for the Austrian gang.

Branch takes best-ever result for Hero

Ross Branch deserves immense credit also for his ’24 Dakar. He has never been luckiest of riders at Dakar but surely one of the bravest and the ever-smiling Botswanan rider claims a very popular and deserved second place on the podium.

“I feel on top of the world.” Says Branch. “It was a really long rally, probably one of the toughest ones I’ve ever done. Hats off to Ricky, he rode an outstanding race. It was really close up until a couple of days when he made a big push and got a gap on me. It was awesome.

“I’m so happy for the team, they deserve to be happy because they’ve put a lot of work in and for such a young team, it’s a great result.”

It always looked inevitable that one of Brabec’s HRC teammates would join him on the podium and in the end it was Adrien Van Beveren who finally got the better of Jose Cornejo after his own Honda had a small but costly mechanical issue yesterday. AVB finishes just under one minute and a half behind Branch and 12:25 off his teammate.