GRÂNDOLA (PORTUGAL) – Sunday, April 7: Overdrive Racing and Toyota Gazoo Racing suffered a minor setback to their quest for honours in the FIA World Rally-Raid Championship (W2RC) Drivers’ and Manufacturers’ Championships at the five-day bp Ultimate Rally-Raid Portugal. 

Lucas Moraes and Armand Monleón were the highest-placed of the Toyota crews in third overall and moved into contention for a serious title challenge as a result. Saudi driver Yazeed Al-Rajhi and his German co-driver Timo Gottschalk led the event outright for a short time in their Overdrive Racing Toyota until they lost over half an hour following a crash on a third day that crossed the border for a night halt at Badajoz in Spain. That incident pushed Al-Rajhi down to ninth but a stage win and a determined fight back by the Saudi lifted him to fifth overall at the finish in Grândola. He now holds third in the W2RC Drivers’ Championship. “What a great fight,” said Moraes. “Firstly, congratulations to the entire organisation for managing to put together this race. It is very important to have the World Cup in Europe. An overall podium and victory in this stage are important points for the championship.”

Al-Rajhi said: “It was not easy for us after the accident two days ago and we lost a lot of time. Thanks to Carlos Barbosa and all his team for the organisation. We enjoy it here and we feel like it was home. I think Timo (Gottschalk) and I did a good job. We had some bad luck on one of the days but we had a lot of fun. Thank you to the crowd, which was exceptional.”The Overdrive Racing duo of Guerlain Chicherit and Guillaume De Mévius both lost ground on event winner and championship rival Nasser Saleh Al-Attiyah. Two successive daily retirements under the new Sporting Regulations mean that a crew cannot continue and Chicherit and co-driver Mathieu Baumel were sidelined after two days. 

De Mévius and Xavier Panseri also suffered delays early in the race with brake issues and an alternator failure and spent the rest of the week playing catch up on the third round of the W2RC. Third quickest on stage four, the Belgian reached the finish in a subdued 54^th. Juan Cruz Yacopini and Daniel Oliveras overcame power steering belt issues to reach the finish in 14^th and Isidre Esteve Pujol and Jose-Maria Villalobos guided the Team Repsol Toyota to the finish in 20^th with Overdrive Racing support. 

Denis Krotov and Konstantin Zhiltsov and the French father and daughter crew of Lionel and Lucie Baud overcame their fair share of problems to reach Grândola in 42^nd and 53^rd, with Baud excelling on the final stage with the fifth quickest time. The Italian pairing of Eugenio Amos and Paulo Ceci were classified in 55^th. Toyota Gazoo Racing’s Seth Quintero and Dennis Zenz were 43^rd after delays early in the event. Technical issues sidelined young Saood Variawa in the third of the Toyota Gazoo Racing cars. Overdrive Racing also offered technical support to Tiago Reis and Valter Cardoso, who are taking part in the Portuguese All-Terrain Championship (CPTT). They held 15^th overall after the opening day but were forced to retire on day two. 

Action commenced with a tricky Prologue stage of 3.53km that was largely better suited to the Challenger cars after recent weather. Al-Attiyah carded the fastest time amongst the Ultimate crews in a top 10 that featured seven Challenger crews. TGR’s Moraes and Seth Quintero were classified in fifth and eighth and Overdrive Racing’s Chicherit, De Mévius, Al-Rajhi and Baud were 11^th, 15^th, 16^th and 18^th. Yacopini and Krotov were 32^nd and 36^th and Amos and Esteve Pujol finished 47^th and 51^st. The afternoon’s opening 100.28km stage started in Santo André and ran via Sines, Santiago do Cacém and Ortiga to finish in Relvas. Chicherit was in inspired form and the Frenchman beat Al-Rajhi by 28 seconds to claim the outright lead. Moraes gave Toyotas a clean sweep of the podium places. 

Variawa held sixth, Yacopini and Krotov were 15^th and 17^th and Amos and Baud held 21^st and 24^th. But mechanical issues cost De Mevius valuable minutes and he slipped back to 57^th overall. Toyota Gazoo Racing’s Quintero stopped with technical problems early in the stage and incurred additional time penalties that saw the American down in 82^nd. The second stage was shortened to 166.29km and started 45 minutes later than scheduled because of persistent morning fog. Al-Rajhi was the first driver to finish and the third quickest time enabled the Saudi to maintain second place. Al-Rajhi said: “We opened the road after the (Guerlain) Chicherit crash, around km30. We did our best and Timo (Gottschalk) did a great job. I think it went well.”

TGR’s Saood Variawa started strongly and was quickest to the 98km checkpoint and held on to snatch the outright lead for the first time on a W2RC event. His delight was short-lived, however: he was awarded a 30-minute time penalty soon after the stage finished and plummeted out of contention. Chicherit stopped on two occasions early in the stage with technical issues after an accident and was passed by his main rivals. But the second stoppage after 79km was terminal for his stage ambitions and the Frenchman was forced to abandon the track and head back to the bivouac with a fistful of time penalties to follow. De Mévius damaged his Toyota after 48km. Any ambitions of remaining in contention for top W2RC points were ruined. Moraes held sixth overall after the stage, Yacopini and Amos were 15^th and 16^th, Krotov was 21^st and Esteve Pujol held 30^th. Baud slipped back to 44^th. 

Chicherit’s disappointing second stage ruined the Frenchman’s chances of claiming the outright victory but, like team-mate De Mévius, he focused on stage wins and extra W2RC points. The Frenchman admitted that his problems on day two began when he lost around 10 minutes crossing a ford behind a biker who was stuck and then he clouted a tree stump in a field and tore the lower right suspension triangle off the Hilux. He began the day in 69^th with De Mévius holding 54^th. But a mechanical issue forced Guerlain to return to the bivouac for the second day in succession and his Portuguese adventure was over. Competitors in the car section tackled a different route to the motorcycles and quads on day three and a stage of 282km in a day’s route of 746km wound its way through the Portuguese countryside and crossed the border into the Extremadura region of Spain and a night halt in Badajoz. 

Despite a puncture, Moraes was the best of the Toyotas in third place, but Al-Rajhi barrel-rolled his Hilux and the resultant time loss pushed the Saudi down to ninth. Yacopini held 19^th after breaking his power steering belt, Esteve Pujol was 24^th, but Krotov, Quintero, Baud, De Mévius and Amos were well down the rankings in 45^th, 48^th, 57^th, 58^th and 59^th overall. After an almost Dakar-like day for its duration on Friday, Saturday’s itinerary offered a competitive section entirely in Spain. The 208km stage ran to the south of Badajoz in the vicinity of the communes of Zafra and Fregenal de la Sierra before a long road section returned competitors to Grândola. 

De Mévius and Al-Rajhi were the early pace-setters and were joined by Quintero at the front of a stage where the five-point bonus for victory eventually fell to Al-Rajhi with Quintero collecting four and De Mévius picking up three to give Toyota a 1-2-3 finish. Al-Rajhi’s stage performance enabled the Saudi to climb from ninth to fifth in the general classification. Al-Rajhi said: “We caught the car in front of us and drove 40km behind it. With each stop, I told him we were behind and to let us pass. When we finally managed to do so, we increased the pace and managed to win the special stage.” Quintero added: “It’s fantastic to see so many people throughout this race. Today’s stage was no exception.”

“It was the first day without any problems for us,” said De Mévius. “It was good to reach the end of this stage and know that we were finally able to ride at our best.” The final stage was split into two sections with the first looping around Grândola for 101km before a final regroup took competitors into a short 3.7km sprint in front of live television cameras and thousands of spectators. Moraes finished the opening section ahead of Al-Attiyah and went on to clock the fastest time to pick up the five bonus points, while Al-Rajhi had opened the road and confirmed fifth overall. Action in the FIA World Rally-Raid Championship resumes with the Desafío Ruta 40 in Argentina on June 1^st-7^th.