Monster Honda's Kevin Benavides believes the Dakar organisers made a mistake with the route and way-points on stage three as a whole group of riders got lost at the same time.

Benavides led the special stage at one point but as the day wound down, he couldn't find a way-point so circled round and then found a group of riders who were also looking.

“Today it was a crazy stage. On the first part, I opened some of the way, but on the last part I arrived at a way-point I thought," he said.

"The road-book was okay, but the way-point was not there, so I went back and back again, but I checked and the place was okay.

'So I continued to the front and I found another way-point so that made it seem that the road book was again okay.

"Then I went back again and found all the other guys and for us, for everybody it was the same mistake at the same moment, so I think it was a mistake by the organisers, so they’ll have to do something."