Impressive stage-one winner Toby Price endured a tough second day in the Dakar Rally, finishing down the standings after the gruelling 457-kilometre Bisha to Wadi ad-Dawasir second leg.

The two-time Dakar motorcycle champion fell to 15th overall, with riders and drivers confronted by tough sand dunes as opposed to the stony tracks the day before.

Price’s Red Bull Factory KTM team suffered a miserable day with third-placed Austrian teammate Matthias Walkner slipping to 46th, losing more than two hours trying to repair a mechanical problem.

The conditions though suited sand ace and new leader Joan Barreda. Starting in 20th position, the Spaniard convincingly overtook Price and the other frontrunners, making them pay dearly for their hesitation in the dunes.

The Australian and second-placed Kevin Benavides both lost 30 minutes but remain in contention.

They will take comfort from the fact that Barreda, who has won as many stages as Marc Coma in the Dakar, has battled with consistency and has never finished higher than fifth in the general standings.

Ricky Brabec, the defending champion, was second, and that’s also how they lined up overall. Ross Branch, fourth on the stage, was third overall, six minutes back.

In the cars class, Nasser Al-Attiyah won the second stage after taking the lead after about 300 kms to beat home Stephane Peterhansel by 2 1/2 minutes.

Carlos Sainz, the defending champion who opened the stage, slipped to sixth but rallied and finished third, more than nine minutes off the pace.

Peterhansel took the race lead overall, his Mini teammate Sainz was 6 1/2 minutes back in second, and Al-Attiyah’s Toyota was third, nine minutes down.

Between the three of them, they have won 10 of the last 11 Dakars, and are favoured to win the second race in Saudi.

“Yesterday, we lost a lot of time because we opened the way and it was not really good for us and we didn’t take risks,” Al-Attiyah said. “But today we went flat out and everything is working very, very well.”

Sebastien Loeb, the nine-time world rally champion who skipped the Dakar last year after finishing third in 2019, improved from 17th to sixth overall.

In the motorbike category, Joan Barreda dominated from the first time checkpoint and won.

The race finishes in Jeddah on January 15.