Joan Barreda

Joan Barreda Bort (born 11 August 1983 in Castellón de la Plana) is a Spanish rally raid motorcycle rider, best known for his participation in the Dakar Rally.

Barreda Bort made his Dakar debut in 2011, riding an Aprilia, but was forced to retire during the second stage of the event due to a fall. Switching to Husqvarna machinery for 2012, Barreda Bort had a promising start - finishing third during the second stage of the rally - before losing significant time to mechanical problems.^[1] Nonetheless, he continued to show strong pace for the remainder of the rally, winning the tenth stage, and ultimately finished in 11th overall, three hours and 37 minutes down on the winning time of Cyril Despres. Later that year, Barreda Bort won the motorcycle category of the Egyptian-based Pharaons Rally for Husqvarna, winning the first, third and fourth stages.^[2][3][4] In addition, Barreda Bort won the Spanish Baja, once again aboard a Husqvarna.^[5]

Continuing with Husqvarna for 2013, Barreda Bort took the lead of the overall classification with victory in the second stage. However, navigation problems in the third stage^[6] and fuel pump problems in the fifth stage ^[7] restricted him to 17th place overall, in spite of three additional victories in the fourth, eighth and tenth stages of the rally. His time was just over three hours shy of that of the winner, Despres.

In 2014, Barreda led early on after winning two of the first three stages, only to drop back behind Marc Coma after navigation problems on stages four and five. He was on course to finish a comfortable second to Coma before suffering electrical failure on the penultimate stage, relegating him to seventh place at the finish despite taking the most stage wins of anybody (five). The same year, Barreda contested four rounds of the FIM Cross-Country Rallies championship, winning the Qatar-based Sealine Rally en route to finishing third in that year's standings.

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