Four American's were solid in the first day of the Desafio Ruta Rally in Argentina. The Monster Energy Honda HRC Rally 2 team enjoyed the perfect start, securing a commanding one-two finish on the opening prologue with Martim Ventura leading teammate Preston Campbell in San Juan, Argentina.

Making their debut appearances at Desafío Ruta 40, the Honda Rally 2 riders wasted no time adapting to the demands of the World Rally-Raid Championship event.The rally began with a short but technical 9km prologue held just after lunchtime on the gravel tracks surrounding San Juan.

Ventura delivered an outstanding ride aboard his Honda CRF450RX RALLY, completing the stage in just over five minutes to set the fastest Rally 2 time.Competing in Argentina for the first time, the Portuguese rider’s performance provided an ideal confidence boost ahead of the remaining five days of racing.His impressive pace also placed him fourth overall, ahead of several Rally GP competitors.

The result marked Honda’s tenth Rally 2 victory in the World Rally-Raid Championship, with Ventura responsible for half of those wins.

Teammate Preston Campbell also impressed on his Desafío Ruta 40 debut, particularly enjoying the riverbed sections as he secured second place in Rally 2, just 14 seconds behind Ventura.The American also broke into the overall top ten with ninth place.

Stage one promises a very different challenge, with the region’s dunes set to test the riders’ sand-riding abilities.Competitors will tackle a demanding 511km route around San Juan, including 340km of timed special stage action, as the battle starts among the 50 riders entered in the Rally 2 category.

In the main class, defending Desafío Ruta 40 winner Ricky Brabec delivered a strong opening performance, finishing just one second behind fastest rider Luciano Benavides.

Skyler Howes lost valuable time after making a navigation mistake in the opening kilometre through the river section and briefly taking the wrong track.

Despite the setback, the American recovered well over the remainder of the prologue to secure fifth place, 17 seconds off the pace – a result he described as one of his strongest prologue performances.

Martim Ventura: I’m super happy, my last prologues haven’t been good to me so I tried training a bit after Portugal on my rhythm. I feel good, the race starts tomorrow and I have a good starting position, so I will try to stay with the riders up front and have fun in Argentina.

Preston Campbell: The prologue was good, I feel super comfortable on the terrain, it was up the rio (river), down the road, which feels like at home so I’m super happy. I’m excited to get the week started. It was super fast, pretty much straight up one rio and then flip around 180 back down the road. So full gas the whole time.

Ricky Brabec: The prologue was good, it’s nice to shake the monkey off the back and start the rally. It was short and sweet with fast sand wash at the beginning. The first five kilometres was just wide open with some square edges along the way. The last four and half kilometres was big, fast, wide open piste with some nice sweeping corners and a couple of dangers. But overall, it was good, the whole team is looking good, the mechanics are working hard. We have a big week ahead of us so let’s keep going.

Skyler Howes: Despite the result, it was actually one of my better prologues. At the first kilometre there was a split in the river, it just had all these little fingers and I went up the wrong finger and it got closed off. I ended up having to traverse back which lost me some seconds there. To be honest I rode good, the bike is feeling great and I’m really happy with that and happy with the work the team has put in. I rode really well the rest of the prologue and when I crossed the finish line I still had a pretty decent result despite the mistake. All in all, we’ll still be in a decent position to start stage one and there’s a long week to go. You’ll hear that a lot from us in this rally, but there’s a lot of kilometres left to go.