Destino Marrocos: último grande teste para o Team HRC antes do Dakar

The 2015 edition of the OiLibya Morocco Rally commences on Monday, the final hurdle of the FIM Cross-Country Rallies World Championship with the Dakar looming.

 The FIM Cross-Country Rallies calendar closes this week with the Morocco Rally – the sixth and final event – with a vibrant Team HRC poised to do battle and achieve the clear objective in mind: victory.

 In addition to the squad’s rally aspirations, Team HRC have high hopes of rounding off the world championship season with a medal for Paulo Gonçalves, currently lying fifth in the overall table. 

Team HRC’s participation will consist of Paulo Gonçalves and Joan Barreda, although once again the team will provide support to up-and-coming young rally raiders as they did in Abu Dhabi earlier this year with Ricky Brabec. This time it will be the turn of Argentinean Kevin Benavides who will be backed by Team HRC thanks to the excellent relationship between the team and Honda South America Rally Team. A last minute change will see Michael Metge, who sustained an elbow injury in training, replaced by Brazilian Jean Azevedo, a fellow member of the Honda South America Rally Team.

 Also featuring in the Team HRC line-up for the last date of the FIM Cross-Country Rallies World Championship will be Italian Paolo Ceci. Ceci holds 13 Italian MotoRally championship titles, was winner of the 2013 TransAnatolia Rally and finished runner-up in 2009 FIM Cross-Country Rallies World Championship. The Italian has posted a top-twenty finish in each of his four Dakar participations.

 The race-start and nerve-centre of the event will be Zagora and it will be to the south of this city where the opening races will be fought out; the Mhamid dune valley, the Draa valley and the Chegagga Erg will all feature before the OiLibya Morocco Rally heads to the Atlantic Coast for the first time, finishing up in Agadir after a total trek of 1,358 kilometres of timed stages.