Fresh from toppling a quality field in last weekend’s Baja Spain Aragón, the SVR Toyota Gazoo Racing Hilux Evo duo moved up from third place after the opening stage on Friday and won the two longer selective sections on Saturday to give them a commanding lead to take into the final short stage on Sunday. Another quickest time on the last stage enabled Ferreira to seal victory at the finish in Reguengos de Monsaraz with a winning margin of 8min 25.1sec. 

Ferreira said: “We are super happy to win this Baja with a big gap. The car was perfect all weekend – no problems at all. The terrain was tough and demanding. Filipe also did a good job on the navigation side. We were opening the road, so it was tricky. Now we have one day to rest and we go to Morocco for the round of the W2RC.”

Gonçalo Guerriero had dominated the Challenger category the previous weekend in Spain and the Portuguese teamed up with Pablo Moreno to repeat the feat in Portugal. The BP Ultimate Adventure Team Polaris RZR Pro R crew snatched second overall on the final stage but were not registered for the FIA European Baja Cup. 

Toyota Gazoo Racing Caetano Portugal’s João Ramos and Jorge Carvalho were the closest challengers in their Hilux for long periods and picked up points for finishing third overall and second in the Ultimate category after losing the runners-up spots to Guerreiro on the last stage. 

Third of the registered crews were the Polish pairing of Maríusz Wiatr and Łukasz Łaskawiec in their Ford F-150 Evo. They finished ninth overall and were able to close the gap on the absent Benediktas Vanagas and Aisvydas Paliukenas in both the overall and Ultimate championships.  

Disqualification (see below) for the FIA European Baja Cup’s SSV category leaders and overall title contenders, Paulo Rodrigues and Fausto Mota, opened the door for Rio Seco Racing team-mate Rúben Rodrigues to storm into contention for the SSV title. The Portuguese completed the event in 10th place with navigator Rui Paolo to set up a title showdown over the remaining two rounds in Portugal and Hungary. 

The Polaris pairing of Herlander Araújo and Tiago Magalhães completed the gruelling event in 12th and picked up points for finishing second in SSV. Filipe Lopes and his navigator Gonçalo Reis were third in the category in a 14th-placed Can-Am.

Retirement from the opening stage proved very costly for the 767/PRK Sport Rally Team’s Dinís Rogeira and his navigator Nelson Ramos. It meant that they could not take part in the whole of Saturday and were therefore classified 33rd in the final results.

That paved the way for Poland’s Marek Kubiczek to take full advantage with navigator Dominik Ragiel. They finished 17th overall in a Taurus Evo Max and have set up a grandstand finish to the Challenger season. 

The Ultimate trio of Ford’s José Rogeira, Toyota’s Master Driver contender Magdalena Zając and X-Raid Mini’s Maria Gameiro, were classified in 19th, 20th and 22nd overall and collected valuable Baja points.

Pim Klaassen and Joel Lutas stopped their DKR Evo GTR midway through the final stage and lost out on a top four finish in the Ultimate category. Thy did not finish.

Fernando Barreiros kept Stock category rival Andrei Halabarodzka and his navigator Aleksei Ignatov at bay to win the category for series-production cross-country machines. The Portuguese Isuzu D-Max driver was classified in 26th, 13min 11.6sec ahead of his rival, and was able to increase his lead in the points’ standings. 

Damage sustained to carbon fibre parts on the X-Raid Mini JCW Rally at last weekend’s Baja Spain Aragón meant Guillaume de Mévius was unable to start the Baja in Portugal. The Czech duo of Karel Trněný and Václav Pritzl were also non-starters in their Ford F-150 Evo. 

Forty-two crews safely made it through technical checks and tackled the revised opening 5.34km Prologue at Mourão on Friday morning that determined the starting order for the afternoon’s amended Portel selective section of 66.47km. 

Fifteen were chasing points in the FIA European Baja Cup over a competitive distance that was extended from 430.20km to 488.16km by Baja officials. 

South Racing Can-Am Team’s Luis Cidade surprised his rivals with the quickest time of 4min 12.2sec on the Prologue to also top the times in the SSV section. Pre-Baja favourite Ferreira came home in second with Tiago Reis, Herlander Araújo and Pim Klaassen rounding off the top five. Guerreiro received a 15-minute penalty after a fence became tangled around their Polaris on the Prologue. They plummeted to 41st. 

Guerriero bounced back strongly from a lowly starting position to set the fastest time on the opening stage and move into a 65.7-second lead over João Dias, as two Polaris SSVs headed the leaderboard at the night halt. Ferreira settled into third place and led the FIA European Baja Cup contenders by four seconds from João Ramos. 

Ferreira said: “It was a brand new stage. I never did it in the past. It was very difficult to open, very technical, crazy. We tried to have a clean run without mistakes.”

Rúben Rodrigues was the third of the registered contenders in 10th overall. Barreiros got the better of Halabarodzka in the duel for Stock class supremacy.

European Challenger pace-setter Dinís Rogeira was unable to finish the stage. He said: “I was going on a fast section with no notes and I went too fast into a turn and crashed. I broke one of the wheels and some parts.” 

Saturday was the longest day of the event with two runs through a demanding selective section of 174.94km between Reguengos and Mourão. 

Starting positions from stage one were retained, as Baja officials deemed the two days part of the same leg in terms of the starting order. Ferreira led the way from Cidade and Tiago Reis but Dínis Rogeira was not able to start under the regulations and was, therefore, not classified in the results, despite being able to compete on the final stage. 

Ferreira attacked from the front and managed to win the opening stage by 3min 16sec from Ramos and moved into a 3min 16.6sec advantage over Guerreiro. Gameiro lost time with a navigational mistake and a collision with a tree in the dust. 

The Portuguese was almost two and a half minutes quicker on his second pass and was able to extend his advantage to 7min 40.9sec over Ramos at the night halt. Ferreira said: “We opened the road. It was very slippery in the beginning. The second pass, everything was cleaner and we could push more and we finished with a good gap.”

A puncture and some wire tangled in a wheel further hampered Gameiro’s progress, as Wiatr climbed into 10th and third of the registered FIA European Baja Cup drivers. 

Guerreiro came home in third and comfortably led the SSV section from Cidade and Barbosa. Marek Kubicek led the registered Challenger crews in 20th place.

Rúben Rodrigues was the highest-placed of the registered SSV drivers in 12th overall. His Rio Seco Racing colleague and rival Paulo Rodrigues hit trouble in his Can-Am. Paulo said: “We had to sort out a problem with the car and lost about 30 minutes. We pushed hard, but there was a tree on the road after around 80 or 90km and that forced us off the track and we had another problem on our hands.”

Paulo Rodrigues was later disqualified for leaving the regrouping out control and deviating from the prescribed itinerary to the service park for unauthorised external assistance. 

Sunday’s final Portel stage ran for 66.47km. Ferreira made sure of securing another victory in style with the win, as Guerreiro took vital time out of Ramos to snatch second place.  

The FIA European Baja Cup continues in Portugal with the Baja de Portalegre 500 on October 15th-17th. 

38th Baja TT Sharish Gin – final result:

1. João Ferreira (POR)/Filipe Palmeiro (POR) Toyota Hilux Evo                                                          6hr 42min 35.6sec*

2. Gonçalo Guerreiro (POR)/Pablo Moreno (ESP) Polaris RXR Pro R                                                          6hr 51min 00.7sec

3. João Ramos (POR)/Jorge Carvalho (POR) Toyota Hilux Evo                                                          6hr 52min 06.5sec*

4. Luis Cidade (POR)/Valter Cardoso (POR) Can-Am Maverick R                                                          6hr 54min 48.1sec

5. Tiago Reis (POR)/Nuno Morais (POR) MMP T3 Rally-Raid                                                           6hr 57min 34.2sec

6. Miguel Barbosa (POR)/Carlos Mendes (POR) Polaris RXR Pro R                                                          6hr 57min 55.1sec

7. Paul Spierings (NED)/Kala Senders (NED) Taurus Evo Max                                                          6hr 59min 08.1sec

8. João Dias (POR)/Rui Pita (POR) Polaris RXR Pro R                                                                           6hr 59min 49.3sec

9. Maríusz Wiatr (POL)/Łukasz Łaskawiec (POL) Ford F-150 Evo+                                                          7hr 01min 50.9sec*

10. Rúben Rodrigues (POL)/Rui Paulo (POR) Can-Am Maverick R                                                          7hr 03min 50.1sec* 

11. Edgar Reis (POR)/Fábio Ribeiro (POR) MMP T3 Rally-Raid                                                          7hr 08min 08.5sec   

12. Herlander Araújo (POR)/Tiago Magalhães (POR) Polaris RXR Pro R                                                       7hr 08min 53.7sec*

13. Pedro Carvalho (POR)/Romeu Martins (POR)   Polaris RXR Pro R                                                       7hr 09min 14.4sec

14. Filipe Lopes (POR)/Gonçalo Reis (POR) Can-Am Maverick R                                                          7hr 13min 37.0sec*

15. Daniel Pereira (POR)/Vasco Franco (POR) Can-Am Maverick R                                                          7hr 15min 46.7sec   

16. Alexandre Franco (POR)/Ricardo Batista (POR) Kaizen S1                                                          7hr 20min 06.1sec

17. Marek Kubicek (POL)/Dominik Ragiel (POL) Taurus Evo Max                                                          7hr 23min 45.4sec*

18. Filipe Cameirinha (POR)/Jérémy Dubois (FRA) Can-Am Maverick R                                    7hr 23min 58.7sec   

19. José Rogeira (POR)/Paulo Marques (POR) Ford Ranger                                                             7hr 25min 15.5sec*

20. Magdalena Zając (POL)/Błażej Czekan (POL) Toyota Hilux                                                          7hr 25min 32.4sec*

21. Johannes Senders (NED)/Yvet Senders (NED) Toyota Hilux                                                           7hr 28min 00.5sec

22. Maria Gameiro (POR)/Rosa Gameiro (ESP) X-Raid Mini JCW 3.0d                                                          7hr 28min 13.6sec*

23. Hugo Raposo (POR)/Rafael Lutas (POR) Nissan Proto                                                                7hr 28min 33.3sec

24. Nuno Faria (POR)/João Martins (POR) Can-Am Maverick X3                                                          7hr 44min 00.2sec

25. Edgar Condenso (POR)/Nuno Silva (POR) Kaizen S1                                                                    8hr 27min 36.1sec

26. Fernando Barreiros (POR)/José Sá Pires (POR) Isuzu D-Max                                                          8hr 31min 51.2sec*

27. Henk Klaassen (NED)/Sasha Siripanyavuthi (THA) Taurus T3 Max                                                          8hr 32min 11.1sec

28. Andrei Halabarodzka (BLR)/Aleksei Ignatov (ESP) Toyota Land Cruiser                         8hr 45min 02.8sec*

29. Daniel Silva (POR)/Gonçalo Magalhães (POR) MMP T3 Rally-Raid                                                 9hr 50min 57.7sec

30. Paul Schmidt (GER)/Jeannete Kvick (DEN) X-Raid Fenic                                                             11hr 06min 53.0sec

31. Tiago Patrocinio (POR)/Paulo Fiúza (POR) Can-Am Maverick X3                                                          14hr 17min 19.6sec

32. Mario Ferreira (POR)/Miguel Silva (POR) Polaris RXR Pro R                                                          14hr 22min 31.8sec

33. Dinís Rogeira (POR)/Nelson Ramos (POR) Can-Am Maverick X3                                                          16hrs 58min 56.8sec*

Pim Klaassen (NED)/Joel Lutas (POR) Red-Lined DKR Evo GTR                                                          RETIRED*

César Sequeira (POR)/Bruno Neves (POR) Mercedes-Benz 350 SLC                                                         RETIRED

Nuno Matos (POR)/Ricardo Claro (POR) Volkswagen Amarok                                                           RETIRED

João Lourenço (POR)/David Monteiro (POR) Can-Am Maverick R                                                          RETIRED

Paulo Rodrigues (POR)/Fausto Mota (POR) Can-Am Maverick R                                                          DSQ*

Pedro Dias da Silva (POR)/José Janela (POR) Bairons SRT Viking                                                           RETIRED

Mário Franco (POR)/João Miranda (POR) Can-Am Maverick X3                                                          RETIRED

Alejandro Martins (POR)/João Rato (POR) X-Raid Mini JCW 3.0d                                                          RETIRED 

Luis Carneiro (POR)/Hugo Magalhães (POR) MMP T3 Rally-Raid                                                           RETIRED 

*denotes registered for FIA European Baja Cup

Ends