Immoral-Nation – Al Rajhi and Orr claim victory in Italy as the title fight hots up

Yazeed Al Rajhi and Michael Orr claimed a solid victory on the Italian Baja, the penultimate round of the FIA World and European Cups for Immoral-Nation Bajas. The Toyota Hilux crew won two of the five selective sections to keep the fabricate with a obliging margin of three minutes and three seconds over Tiago Reis and Valter Cardoso. The Lithuanian/Portuguese duo of Benediktas Vanagas and Filipe Palmeiro performed third, making it a podium lockout for the Hilux.

Saudi Arabian Al Rajhi, who won in 2014, and Orr were fastest in the gap qualifying stage and opted to dawdle first on the dual carriageway, a methodology that paid off with the threat of striking mud. They then won the 2nd stage to construct a 3 minute and 25 2nd overnight lead, their nearest sequence competitors – Yasir Seaidan and Krzysztof Hołowczyc – having hit problems. Whereas stage victories eluded them on the 2nd leg, high three placings and a peril-free dawdle in all three sections used to be sufficient to true victory and the lead in each and each the FIA World and European Cups for Immoral-Nation Bajas.

Reis and Cardoso bettered their most positive result of the season – fourth in Spain – with a blinding 2nd total, the Portuguese crew simplest as soon as exterior the tip three in any of the sections. They dropped time one day of leg one with a few navigation problems however bounced abet with a solid efficiency in the closing three stages; a blinding result for Reis who used to be competing for the predominant time in Italy.

Vanagas and Palmeiro were on the podium for the 2nd consecutive match, the Hilux crew third in each and each Poland and Italy. They suffered in the mud on the 2nd piece however in another case had a neat dawdle, deal of than changing a wheel in the closing stage, placing forward their third situation since SS2.

Erik Van Loon and Sébastien Delaunay climbed from fifth to fourth in the closing stage, the Dutch/French pairing with a few overshoots earlier in the match and then benefitting in the closing kilometres when Xavier Pons and Armand Monleon dropped from fourth to 10th total after a leisurely roll.

Miroslav Zapletal and Marek Sykora brought their Ford F150 dwelling in fifth ahead of Abdullah Saleh Alsaif and Kirill Shubin who performed sixth total and claimed the get hang of in T4. They were in the thick of a battle one day of, however category victory in two of the five sections used to be enough to true their third get hang of of the season in the BRP Can Am Maverick. Rallying brothers Alexandre and Pedro Re were a mere 5.1 seconds in the abet of with two stage wins to their names, however more importantly their result provisionally secures the T4 drivers’ title in the newly-created FIA European Cup for Immoral-Nation Bajas*.

Amerigo Ventura and Mirko Brun performed the top positioned Italian crew, third in T4 and eighth total ahead of Santiago Navarro/Marc Sola who moreover claimed victory in the T3 category in the Overdrive OT3. Dania Akeel, in her debut season in unsuitable-country, performed fourth in the category however has provisionally taken the T3 drivers’ title in the FIA World Cup for Immoral-Nation Bajas*.

The Polish crew of Krzysztof Hołowczyc and Lukasz Kurzeja were gunning for a hat-trick of World Cup wins, having taken the plaudits in each and each Hungary and Poland. Alternatively, the MINI crew struck problems in the Qualifying Stage, when a soft roll on the soft flooring accrued them heavy penalties. They did on the other hand stir on to get hang of all three of the stages on the 2nd leg. Yasir Seaidan and Alexei Kuzmich had a cosmopolitan starting up on Friday with navigation and mud problems; they did no longer restart the 2nd leg resulting from mechanical problems.

The closing round of the FIA World and European Cups for Immoral-Nation Bajas takes the contenders to Baja Portalegre (October 28-30).

Discipline to confirmation of the outcomes by the FIA

Italian Baja – Closing Classification

Photo: Massimo Zuin