• The French pairing secures eight of ten stage wins.
The Monster Energy X-raid Team continues its streak of success. Following the two successes of Nani Roma in Argentina’s Desafío Ruta 40 and the Baja Aragon in Spain, French pairing Stéphane Peterhansel and Jean-Paul Cottret now won the Brazilian Rally dos Sertões, with their MINI ALL4 Racing. In the end, they prevailed in eight of the event’s 10 stages and secured the overall win with a 1:49-hour lead over Mitsubishi‘s Guilherme Spinelli.
The Rally dos Sertões is one of the toughest and most grueling events on the off-road rally calendar. Long stages featuring up to 514 special stage kilometres and a 911-kilometre marathon stage with a special-stage mileage of 650 kilometres. And all this on the most different terrains. With his MINI ALL4 Racing, Peterhansel coped with rocky path, river beds, sandy sections and narrow path through Brazil’s jungles and grasslands without encountering any major problems. Only in the prologue and the seventh stage – where he lost time due to a puncture – he didn’t finish first.
Monster Energy X-raid Team Principal Sven Quandt: „We are really happy about his result. Apart from the puncture we had no problems whatsoever and that’s a really remarkable feat in such a challenging rally. The stages were extremely tough and demanding and represented a major challenge for everybody. Despite having been shorter than last year's edition, it was a just as exhausting and grueling event.”
Overall results:
1. S. Peterhansel (FRA) / J.-P. Cottret (FRA) MINI ALL4 Racing – 28h 27m 12s
2. G. Spinelli (BRA) / Y. Haddad (BRA) Mitsubishi – 30h 16m 13s
3 . J. Franciosi (BRA) / R. Capoani (BRA) Mitsubishi - 30h 59m 31s
4. M. Cassol (BRA) / L. F. Eckel (BRA) Mitsubishi – 31h 21m 23s
5. J. Jorley do Amaral Jr (BRA) / M. Justo (BRA) Sherpa – 32h 28m 50s
