MORAES AND SCHAREINA LEAD AFTER FIRST DAY

The 39th edition of the Baja España Aragón kicked off with Lucas Moraes and Kaique Bentivoglio, in their Toyota Hilux, surprising favourites to clinch the stage victory. Nasser Al-Attiyah, who was leading until the 30th kilometer, lost precious time trailing behind Al-Rajhi for several kilometers. He also lost valuable seconds failing to surpass Portugal’s Tiago Reis midway through the stage.

Lucas Moraes emerged as the day’s standout winner, securing his inaugural partial victory in the Baja España Aragón. He will begin tomorrow’s stage with a slender 21-second lead over Al-Attiyah. Joao Ferreira secured the third position in the provisional general standings at the close of today’s stage.

Lucas Moraes: “It’s amazing and I want to thank Toyota and Overdrive because it’s a sensational car. Today’s special stage was quite similar to the ones I’ve had in Brazil, very fun, technical, with a lot of rocks and you have to be very careful with the stones. Tomorrow I expect something similar on the specials but we have very little advantage over Nasser. Regardless, we’re going to give it our best shot.”

Nasser Al-Attiyah: “The stage was good, but we lost some time behind Yazeed Al-Rajhi. It was difficult to find a place to overtake him, and then we caught up with Tiago Reis and we were about forty or fifty kilometres behind him and we lost time again. The positive thing is that we got here without any problems. Tomorrow there will be two tough stages, with a lot of rocks and we’ll see what happens.”

Among other contenders for the Baja España Aragón victory, Nani Roma ended the first day of competition in fifth place, trailing the leader by 3’18”. On the other hand, the Audi team had a tough day; Stephane Peterhansel ended the day in ninth position,at 7’44”, and Carlos Sainz was tenth, at 8’22”.

In the Spanish Cross-Country Rally Championship, Félix Macías and José Luis Conde won the first stage, holding a 21” lead over Santiago Carnicer and Julián Villarrubia. The third-best time in the first special stage went to Laia Sanz, driving the Taurus. Meanwhile, Daniel Alonso, a potential winner, had a disappointing day. With 51 kilometers remaining to the finish, his wheel studs came loose while leading, costing him 23’53” in the special stage.