The first real stage of the Baja España-Aragón brought two special stages on Saturday totalling 331 kilometres, between Argente and Concud (SS1, 151 km) and between Caminreal and Gea de Albarracín (SS2, 180 km). Cars ran the first stage in the morning and the second in the afternoon, while bikes and quads covered the same routes in reverse order and at different times, so that the two disciplines were never on the same section of course at once. The trucks only came into action in the afternoon.
Among the bikes a remarkable dead heat developed at the front, while in the cars João Ferreira took over the lead and title contender Guillaume de Mévius ran into trouble. Seven Dutch crews were active in the cars, with an excellent sixth and eighth place for Pim Klaassen as the most notable result. In the trucks the day win went to Gerrit Zuurmond, while teammate Tjeerd van Ballegooij struggled with tyre damage.
Bikes: Santolino and Braceras exactly level on the road
Among the bikes, prologue winner David Braceras clocked precisely the same time as Lorenzo Santolino, last year’s defending champion, on his first special stage in rally sport. Without time penalties both riders would have been exactly level after the prologue and the first stage, but an earlier penalty of 1 minute and 37 seconds imposed on Braceras still meant that Santolino started the second stage as leader. After both stage runs that order held: Santolino leads by a margin of 2 minutes and 38 seconds over Braceras, with Sergio Navarro third at almost six minutes.
Behind them, Javi Vega and Alfredo Pellicer consolidated their positions in the top five, with Tomás Coutinho Paulo still the best quad rider. Hugo Blanjoue, Sergio Salvador and Raúl Moreno Martínez completed the top eight. Several riders had time penalties applied to their classification during the day, including Navarro, Salvador, Coutinho Paulo and Moreno. No Dutch bike or quad riders are on the entry list for this edition.
Cars: Ferreira into the lead, disaster for De Mévius
Among the cars the picture from the prologue changed completely. João Ferreira and Filipe Palmeiro, who had finished the prologue with a time penalty, won both SS1 and SS2 and sit more than three minutes ahead of Yazeed Al-Rajhi and Dennis Zenz after the first day. Luis Portela and Carlos Jorge Mendes, the fastest in the prologue, dropped to third. A strong fourth place went to Cristina Gutiérrez and Marc Sola, who are making an impressive debut in the Ultimate class with the Spanish Santana. Saood Variawa and Charan Moore, who had finished the prologue with the fastest time before a penalty for cutting a corner set them back, ended the day in fifth, ahead of Francisco Barreto and Paulo Fiuza.
Guillaume de Mévius and Mathieu Baumel, who had finished the prologue in second, suffered a heavy setback on the first special stage. The 2024 defending champion dropped to 54th after SS1, more than three quarters of an hour behind the lead, and recovered only to 40th on the second stage. As a result, one of the favourites for overall victory is already virtually out of contention for the classification after just the first day.
In the Challenger class, Gonçalo Guerreiro leads with the Taurus Evo Max, with Mitchel van den Brink in second. In the SSV category, Afonso Oliveira leads.
Seven Dutch crews, Klaassen strong in sixth and eighth
Pim Klaassen and South African navigator Leander Pienaar delivered the best Dutch performance of the day with their DKR Evo GTR: sixth after SS1 and eighth in the overall classification after SS2, after the car lost a few positions on the second stage. Daklapack Rallysport reported after the morning stage that it was already satisfied with the pace from the very start.
Mitchel van den Brink and Bart van Heun (South Racing Can-Am) sit tenth in the overall classification after both stages and second in the Challenger class. Henk Klaassen and Sasha Siripanyavuthi climbed to fourteenth overall and third in the Challenger class with Daklapack Rallysport’s Taurus T3 Max; the team reported that the Taurus set the second-fastest time in that class on the morning stage.
Sander Derikx and Michael Schuttel (Daklapack Rallysport) sit 28th overall and ninth in the Challenger class. Johan and Yvet Senders climbed sharply to 35th on their second day in the Taurus, good for eleventh in the Challenger class. Richard Timmerman and Kala Senders follow in 42nd in the overall classification and lead the T1.1 class.
Rients Hofstra and Wouter de Graaff had a difficult day: after SS1 the pair were 53rd, more than forty minutes off the lead, a deficit that grew further after SS2 to over an hour and a half.
Trucks: only the afternoon stage, Zuurmond capitalises
The trucks ran only SS2 on Saturday, after the organisers decided not to let the truck category take part in the morning stage. The reason was an objection from several FIA car drivers, who feared the trucks would damage the course too much for the afternoon stage. With only four trucks on the entry, the impact of that fear on the tracks seems limited, but the organisers nevertheless chose to accommodate the FIA class.
In that single stage, Gerrit Zuurmond, with Jan van der Vaet and Jaap Zuurmond, proved fastest. The team passed teammates Tjeerd van Ballegooij, Anthony Dekker and Dick Zuurmond early in the stage, and with that also took over the lead in the overall classification. Czech driver Karel Poslední followed at 4.3 seconds, William de Groot at just over a minute.
For Van Ballegooij the stage went far less smoothly. In the last twenty kilometres of the fight for the day win, the truck hit a rock, resulting in a blowout. The damage could still be repaired so that the truck finished the stage, but the team will have to spend much of the night on repairs for the final stage on Sunday. After this loss, Van Ballegooij sits last in the classification of the four trucks, but the gap to leader Zuurmond is still only 1 minute and 20 seconds: enough for a tense finish on the closing day.
On Sunday, SS1 will be repeated as SS3, bringing the rally to a close in Teruel.
