• Third consecutive win for Nani Roma
Beaming faces and everybody cheering – that’s X-raid in Spain, today. The Trebur based team did not only secure the overall win in the Baja Aragon but four of the team’s MINI ALL4 Racing clinched the top-four positions, thus truly outclassing the competition. In front of his home crowd, Nani Roma and his French co-driver Michel Périn celebrated the overall win. Orlando Terranova (ARG) and Paulo Fiúza (POR) came second, in their second rally in the MINI ALL4 Racing. French pairing Stéphane Peterhansel / Jean-Paul Cottret finished third, in the Baja, with Poland’s Krzysztof Holowczyc and his German navigator Andreas Schulz completing the fantastic team result by taking their Mini ALL4 racing to fourth place, thus adding more important points to their FIA Cross Country Rally World Cup tally. Meanwhile, German pairing Stephan Schott / Holm Schmidt finished 11, with their MMINI All4 Racing. And the Argentineans Adrian Yacopini and Marco Scopinaro, who contested their first event with the BMW X3 CC, finished 14th.
At the wheel of his yellow MINI ALL4 Racing, Roma won two special stages; Peterhansel with his green MINI ALL4 Racing even three. In the third special stage, however, a broken brake disc cost the Frenchman a lot of time and he dropped back to fourth. But he used the final special stage to work his way back up to third position, behind Terranova. For Roma who already won the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge and the Ruta 40 it’s the third consecutive triumph.
Meanwhile, StephanSchott wasn’t completely happy with the achievements in his first Baja. Unfortunately, he again and again was hit by bad luck, with his KS TOOLS MINI ALL4 Racing. Having made a mistake in the prologue the German had to start from only 42nd position but quickly worked his way up to hold 19th position at the end of day two. And at the end of the day, he crossed the finish line in 11th position. The Argentineans Yacopini and Marco used the Baja Spain to keep on familiarising themselves with X-raid’s BMW X3 CC. Nonetheless, they delivered in impressive style and finished 14th.
Monster Energy X-raid Team Manager Sven Quandt: “Congratulations to Nani. An outstanding performance with the 2013-spec car. Orlando also did a great job and demonstrated that he has got what it takes to permanently battle it out at the very top. The enhanced MINI ALL4 Racing demonstrated its potential but still has got some teething troubles that have to be eliminated.”
Nani Roma (1st place): “Having secured another win feels just great. I love this Baja since I contested it for the first time, back in 1995. This year, the route was very technical – in contrast to the previous races. Again and again we had to cope with big rocks or high grass.” Orlando
Terranova (2nd place): “I’m really delighted with having finished runner-up but to be honest, I’m somewhat tired, now. The Baja was extremely exhausting. It was a great race and a good preparation for the Dakar in January.”
Stéphane Peterhansel (3rd place): "This was a really nice route, far better than the ones in the previous years. Nani was extremely quick. Certainly, Jean-Paul and I also would have been able to win but on Saturday, we just had bad luck. Nani made no mistakes and is the deserved winner.”
Krysztof Holowczyc (4th place): “The most important upshot: I succeeded in adding some points to my World Cup tally and have got another 700 race kilometres under my belt. The terrain of the Baja was really interesting and diversified: twisting, fast, wide grass landscsapes, some off-road sections. Unfortunately, I was hampered by some minor technical problems that cost me the chance of battling it out at the very top. Now I’m looking forward to the Baja Hungary in a few weeks time.”
Stephan Schott (11th place): “Although having finished 12th isn’t exactly bad I have to admit that I’m no really happy with my first Baja. We hadn’t a single really trouble-free special stage and I’m convinced that we would have been able to make it to the top-10, otherwise.”
Adrian Yacopini (14th place): “A great rally and a great car but the past days were extremely exhausting. In the special stages, you hadn’t a single second for a breather. You had to be fully focused at any time.”
Overall result Baja Spain:
1st N. Roma (ESP) / M. Périn (FRA) MINI ALL4 Racing – 9h 20m 55s
2nd O. Terranova (ARG) / P. Fiúza (POR) MINI ALL4 Racing – 9h 25m 27s
3rd S. Peterhansel (FRA) / J.-P. Cottret (FRA) MINI ALL4 Racing – 9h 28m 33s
4th K. Holowczyc (POL) / A. Schulz (GER) MINI ALL4 Racing – 9h 37m 15s
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11th S. Schott (GER) / H. Schmidt (GER) MINI ALL4 Racing – 11h 00m 22s
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14th A. Yacopini (ARG) / M. Scopinaro (ARG) BMW X3 CC – 11h 01m 28s
