Coronel brothers crash into motorbike on Dakar Rally Stage 3

With all competitors sharing the same routes across each stage at the Dakar Rally, it isn’t uncommon for different machinery and classes to cross paths during the competition.

But for Tim and Tom Coronel, they were unsighted to Philippe Gendron on his Nomade Racing KTM bike and crashed towards the end of the 438km Al Duwadimi to Al Salamiya stage.

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Thankfully both entrants were reported and seen to be OK after the crash, having both made it to the stage finish and the bivouac.

In a video posted on social media by Tim Coronel, the Dutch driver explained what happened and that he and brother Tom Coronel checked on Gendron both immediately after the crash and at the end of the stage.

“Mamma mia. A difficult stage, two punctures, and look at this [at the broken windshield from the impact], it was a motorcycle that came in the opposite direction, the one we were on,” Tim Coronel said in a social media post.

“We asked him if he was okay, and he was, we checked if he really was, so he came back with his bike.

“We had a lot of problems in the last 20km, but we finished the stage, and now we have to go to the bivouac.”

Both Coronels later apologised to Gendron for the crash.

The Coronel pair, competing for Century in the T1.2 Prototype Cross-Country Cars class, finished 48th on Stage 3, while Gendron was 77th in class after remounting and successfully completing the stage.

In the overall standings, Overdrive Toyota's Yazeed Al-Rajhi has taken the lead at the Dakar Rally from Audi's Carlos Sainz, as Lucas Moraes claimed Stage 3 victory for Toyota.

In the bike class, both Pablo Quintanilla and Ricky Brabec were penalised for speeding on the stage which handed victory to Kevin Benavides, while Ross Branch retained the overall lead.