Chilean Pablo Quintanilla won his first stage of the 2015 Dakar Rally and is the first non-European rider to win in the bike class in this year's event. The KTM rider defeated Yamaha's Juan Pedrero Garcia by 11 seconds with Stefan Svitko finishing a second back of the Spaniard. Toby Price finished fourth, 41 seconds back with Laia Sanz rounding out the top five, two minutes and 31 seconds behind Quintanilla.
The big shake up was in the overall classifications as Marc Coma finished ninth on the stage, seven minutes and 37 seconds off the Chilean but the defending Dakar winner has taken the overall lead as Honda's Joan Barreda finished 72nd on the day, three hours and five minutes behind Quintanilla. Barreda had to be towed at one point of the stage by Jeremias Israel Esquerre.
Coma holds a 9-minute and 11-second lead over Paulo Gonçalves, who finished fifteenth on the stage, just under five minutes behind Coma. Quintanilla is 11 minutes and 11 seconds back in third with Price 15 minutes and 56 seconds back in fourth. Svitko rounds out the top five, trailing Coma by 26 and a half minutes. Ruben Faria is sixth, 34 minutes and 34 seconds back. Fair finished seven seconds back of Coma on stage eight. Alain Duclos is the final rider within an hour of the overall leader, 58 minutes and eight seconds back in seventh position.
Barreda dropped to 16th, two hours and 51 seconds back of Coma in the overall classifications.
In the quad class, Jeremias Gonzalez Ferioli won stage eight, his first of the 2015 Dakar Rally. The Argentine won by seven minutes and 54 seconds over Ignacio Casale but he Chilean jumped tot he overall lead in the quad class. Sergio Lafuente finished third, 11 minutes and four seconds back. Bolivian Walter Nosiglia finished 16 minutes and 38 seconds back in fourth with Frenchman Christophe Declerck in fifth, 29 minutes and 37 seconds back.
Rafał Sonik entered stage eight as the quad class leader but after finishing eighth on the stage, 36 minutes and 42 seconds after Gonzalez Ferioli, the Pole will enter the final five stages six minutes and 49 seconds behind the defending quad class champion. Lafuente trails Casale by 49 minutes and 11 seconds back in third. Gonzalez Ferioli is still over two hours and 45 minutes behind the Chilean despite winning today's stage.
All four class will be in competition for the final five stages of the 2015 rally with the competitors heading from Iquique to Calama. Tomorrow's stage is the final stage of the 2015 Dakar Rally to end in Chile.
