Al-Attiyah and Boulanger extend lead in Portugal

Nasser Saleh al-Attiyah and his French co-driver Edouard Boulanger extended their overall lead in Ultimate Rally-Raid Portugal to 4min 39sec as the event headed into a night halt across the border at the Spanish town of Badajoz on Friday evening.
The Prodrive Hunter driver set the quickest time, picked up the five W2RC bonus points for the stage win and benefitted from delays for his closest rival Yazeed al-Rajhi to move well clear of the new second-placed Joao Ferreira. With title rival Carlos Sainz failing to collecting any stage bonus points after incurring a 2min 10sec time penalty on arrival into Badajoz, al-Attiyah has reduced the Spaniard’s virtual lead in the W2RC Drivers’ Championship to just two points.
The leading Qatari said: “It wasn’t easy. At the beginning the engine failed in the water crossings and we had to stop for about two minutes. Then we tried to attack to make up for lost time but the special was really difficult. I’ve never done a special like this. We have to manage it step-by-step. Tomorrow won’t be easy again, but we’ll try to continue like this.”
Ferreira and Filipe Palmeiro delivered another impressive display to initially come home second in the first of the X-Raid Mini JCW Rally Plus machines.
They also overhauled their X-Raid Mini team-mates Carlos Sainz and Alex Haro to snatch second place by just two seconds.
Rally officials then awarded the Portuguese a 20-second stage penalty for speeding and he slipped back to third, 18 seconds behind Sainz.
But, Sainz was later penalised himself with a 2min 10sec hit and slipped back to fourth overall.
Ferreira said: “Super, super tough. A very long stage with very difficult conditions to drive. We tried not to attack in order to reach the end without damaging the car too much because there is still a lot of racing left. The strategy worked, but it wasn’t easy at all.”
Sainz finished the stage with a missing bonnet, broken fender and one broken windscreen wiper. He added: “Difficult. We ran out of windshield wipers and I couldn’t see anything.”
Toyota Gazoo Racing’s Lucas Moraes and his Spanish co-driver Armand Monleón led the stage for a short time and then came under pressure from a charging al-Attiyah after collecting a flat tyre. The Brazilian reached the finish in fourth after Ferreira’s penalty, picked up three W2RC bonus points and now holds third position in the overall standings. He is only 20 seconds behind Ferreira.
Moraes said: “We were doing well but, unfortunately, we punctured with 60km to go and lost all the margin we had. We were attacking because to keep up with Nasser we really have to attack. Honestly, I don’t even know where I punctured. It was a shame but it’s part of it.”
Competitors in the car section tackled a different route to the motorcycles and quads and a stage of 282km in a day’s route of 746km that wound its way through the Portuguese countryside and crossed the border into the Extremadura region of Spain and a night halt in Badajoz.
Can-Am Factory Racing’s Rokas Baciuška was in stunning form and the Lithuanian made rapid progress up the leaderboard after recording the second quickest time. That catapulted Rokas and his Spanish co-driver Oriol Vidal up to fifth in the general classification and first in the Challenger category. He also picked up four bonus W2RC points for his stage performance.
Santag Racing’s Armindo Araújo used his considerable experience of racing across local Portuguese terrain and moved up to sixth in his Can-Am and second in Challenger, albeit 6min 07sec behind Baciuska.
Brazilian driver Cristian Baumgart is seventh in the second of the Prodrive-built Hunters but his brother Marcus suffered technical issues early in the stage and plummeted out of contention. Portugal’s Ricardo Porém climbed to eighth, third in Challenger and second of the W2RC-registered drivers in the class.
Al-Rajhi and Timo Gottschalk started the stage strongly, were fastest at the 107km point and had snatched the virtual overall lead from al-Attiyah. But the push for a stage win unravelled soon afterwards with the loss of around 20 minutes after he rolled the Hilux and resultant further time losses that pushed the Saudi down to ninth. Francisco Barreto rounded off the top 10 in his Toyota Hilux.
Nicolas Cavigliasso remains firmly on course for valuable Challenger points in 11th, while Alexandre Pinto holds 12th.
Sebastien Loeb was unable to make further progress in his Taurus T3M with co-driver Fabian Lurquin co-driving. The nine-time WRC champion lost time in the stage, as did the hard-charging Portuguese duo of João Dias and Joao Miranda in their Santag Racing Can-Am Maverick X3.
They were running in a virtual sixth quickest on the day before dropping out of the overall top 20.
Guerlain Chicherit’s disappointing second stage has ruined the Frenchman’s chances of claiming the outright victory but the Toyota driver, like team-mate Guillaume De Mévius, is now focusing on stage wins and extra W2RC points. The Frenchman admitted that his problems on Thursday 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 started the day in 69th overall but a mechanical issue forced Guerlain to return to the bivouac for the second day in succession and his Portuguese adventure was over. Likewise, Spaniard Cristina Gutierrez (Taurus T3M) received penalties on days one and two and was forced out of the event before the start of stage three under the Sporting Regulations. Buggyra Racing’s Aliyyah Koloc suffered an engine issue on stage two and withdrew from the event, as did Portugal’s Miguel Barbosa.
Lithuania’s Vaidotas Zala and his local navigator Paulo Fiuza suffered engine-related issues on their Mini JCW Rally Plus and stopped 18km into the stage.
Technical issues for the W2RC’s SSV category leader Yasir Seaidan before the start of the stage saw the Saudi return to the bivouac. His retirement strengthened the South Racing Can-Am Team’s grip on the SSV section even before Joao Monteiro and co-driver Nuno Morais took the start. Spaniard Ricardo Ramilo moved up to second in the rankings.
Monteiro delivered a strong stage performance to stay out in front of his rivals in 13th overall, but he is not registered for W2RC points. Ramilo is second, 15min 08sec behind Monteiro, and the first of the registered W2RC SSV drivers.