The sixth Baja Morocco came to a close on Monday in Merzouga with a short but far from simple final stage of 130 kilometres. The roadbook contained more than two hundred notes, navigation was tricky due to the scarcity of fixed tracks and long sections without waypoints, and at the end another 33 kilometres of dunes were waiting. In the briefing the organisation had already warned against treating the final day as a formality, and that proved justified.
The overall victories went to Noa Sainct among the bikes, who won all five stages, and to Alexandre Pinto and Bernardo Oliveira, who claimed both the SSV classification and the combined classification of cars and SSVs. Mathieu Serradori won among the cars. For the Netherlands it became a closing day not to be forgotten quickly: Puck Klaassen won the final stage with the fastest time of all cars and SSVs, and Rik van den Brink and Gydo Heimans grabbed third place in the car classification right at the death.
Sainct unbeaten
Among the bikes, Sainct closed out his week the way he had begun it: with a stage win. The Frenchman of Nomade Racing rode the final special in 2.25.11, winning all five stages of this Baja. The fact that he opened the route as the first rider every day, without the tracks of others to fall back on, makes that achievement all the more impressive. Teammate Franck Verhoestraete, by his own account, crossed the line together with Sainct, having decided at the first neutralisation to follow his teammate in order to avoid navigation errors. In the results he sits at 8.00 due to a ten-minute penalty. Christopher Jautard completed the day’s podium for Nomade Racing, ahead of Thomas Kongshoj and Boris Bretez.
In the overall standings Sainct wins with 22.04.57 and a lead of 1.07.34 over Verhoestraete, who finishes second as a Belgian. Louis Trelluyer of Casteu Trophy completes the podium at 2.36.47, ahead of his teammate Bretez and Kongshoj. Sara Jugla finishes as the only woman in the bike field, in twelfth place. All seventeen riders who started appear in the final standings.
Pinto and Oliveira take the double
Among the SSVs, the stage win went to Puck Klaassen and her Argentine navigator Augusto Sanz, in 2.07.46. Pinto and Oliveira were second at 2.22, ahead of Manuel Andújar and Cesar Andres Frini at 3.00 and Adrien Choblet and Paul Durame at 3.16.
For Pinto and Oliveira the day was about holding on to their lead over Serradori in the combined classification. The Portuguese duo therefore chose to follow the French car. According to Oliveira he doubted along the way whether Serradori was on the right line, and later in the special they picked their own line after all, while Serradori lost his way. It gave the Portuguese, in the BBR Odysée CR-X, a final time of 19.37.18 and with it victory in both the SSV classification and the overall classification of cars and SSVs, 9.11 ahead of Serradori.
Choblet and Durame finish second among the SSVs at 23.32 and thereby win the SSV Open class. George Hales and Max Delfino finish third at 2.03.33, ahead of Du Xuanyi and Tian Yu. In the SSV Serie class the win goes to Damien Barba and Gregory Revest, ahead of Harite Gabari and Vincent Ferri, who reached the finish after all despite their broken control arms on the opening day.
For Pinto and Oliveira the Baja was emphatically preparation for the Rallye du Maroc, which begins next week.
Serradori wins among the cars, Van den Brink third
Among the cars, Serradori was the fastest on the final day too, with 2.11.15 and a 1.23 lead over Simon Vitse. Van den Brink and Heimans set the third car time, ahead of Kees Koolen and Wouter Rosegaar. Behind them followed David Gerard, Jérôme Cambier and both Toyota Land Cruisers.
Serradori and Loïc Minaudier win the car classification with 19.46.29 and finish second in the combined classification. Daniel Beecroft and Phillip Gillespie finish as the second car at 4.43.57 despite a string of penalties. The fight for third place was not settled until the final day. Van den Brink and Heimans began the final stage 5.44 behind Dave Beecroft and Fraser Parish, but were more than 28 minutes faster in the special, partly because the Britons received a ten-minute penalty. With that the Dutchmen take third place among the cars and in the Ultimate 4WD class.
Cambier and Lecourbe win the Ultimate 2WD class, ahead of Vitse and Delfino, who won two stages among the cars but fell far back due to more than 22 hours of penalty and forfeit time. In the Auto 4WD class the win goes to Yasir Seaidan and Jean Michel Polato, ahead of their teammates Christian Lavieille and Valentin Sarreaud.
Day success, podium place and training time
Puck Klaassen closed out her short Baja with a stage win and the fastest time of all cars and SSVs on the final day. After a third and a second place on the preceding days, the latter by nineteen seconds, this time it came off. She called the special technical and challenging, and afterwards was very pleased with the G Rally Team G-Ecko.
Rik van den Brink and Gydo Heimans turned a week that began with an engine problem and a lost opening day into a podium place. After the third time on the final day, they finish third among the cars, behind Serradori and Daniel Beecroft, and thirteenth in the combined classification. An achievement with extra shine, because on the fourth day the duo still had to deal with a faulty throttle valve and had to close the opening stage on a set time.
Kees Koolen and Wouter Rosegaar rode the fourth car time on the last day in the RD Limited Ford Raptor, at 11.50 from Serradori. Their participation had a clear and predetermined goal. According to Rosegaar only the fourth and fifth stages were on the programme, to give Koolen the chance to gain more experience with the Raptor in the dunes. Because time for extensive training is limited, the Baja was a valuable opportunity for that. With two strong stages, including a fourth car time on both Sunday and Monday, that preparation appears to have succeeded. The duo will be at the start of the Rallye du Maroc next week.
(The results mentioned are the provisional final classifications published by the organisation and are subject to change.)
