[sharbeldam]

so basically it's between primary benzylic carbocation which is known to be stable (benzlic) and secondary carbocation which is allylic... which is also stablized by resonance, i know that usually benzylic is more stable than allylic but when they are same degree.. here its different...

any help?

[AWK]

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6420061/
Check also Supplementary Material.