Gonçalves and Benavides, all fired up for the Atacama Rally

After the successes of the recent Baja Aragón, where the Monster Energy Honda Team clinched a noteworthy victory, the team now takes to the Chilean desert to tackle the third round of the FIM Cross-Country Rallies World Championship – the Atacama Rally.

 The Monster Energy Honda Team’s next world championship adventure will take place in the north of Chile from 12th to 18th August. The campaign will be spearheaded by the duo of Paulo Gonçalves (Portugal) and Kevin Benavides (Argentina) who participated in the two previous world championship events in Abu Dhabi and Qatar in April.

The rider from Salta, Argentina, now fully-recovered from the injury that forced him to sit out the Dakar 2017, will be looking to regain the pace required for top-level rally competition in the build-up to the season’s main event – the 2018 Dakar Rally. Last year Benavides made it onto the podium in the Chilean race and aims to improve on this result in this year’s edition. For Portuguese rider Gonçalves the objective will be to put in a satisfactory performance in the Chilean desert that could earn precious points towards the championship title. Likewise, the rally should prove to be invaluable training ahead of the Dakar – the season’s biggest challenge for the Monster Energy Honda Team. 

The Atacama Rally kicks off in Copiapó with a 15-kilometre prologue and finishes in Iquique, in the north of the country, after having disputed a total distance of 1960 kilometres, featuring 1430 kilometres of special stage.