Algodyne Green Racing Team set to field three X3CC's in Baja Spain Aragon

X-RAID TEAM BAJA SPAIN ARAGON (July 17th-20th, 2008)
FIA International Cup for Cross-Country Bajas, round 3 of 6

The AlgoDyne Green Power Racing Team will field three BMW X3CCs in the 2008 Baja Spain Aragon, round three of the FIA International Cup for Cross-Country Bajas, on July 17th-20th.

Qatar’s Nasser Saleh Al-Attiyah and Swedish co-driver Tina Thörner will line up alongside the French duo of Bruno Saby and Alain Guehennec and Argentinean driver Orly Terranova and his Australian co-driver Lee Palmer in the Trebur-built cars.

Al-Attiyah, from Doha, has one of the busiest motor sport calendars of any driver in the world and heads to the heat of Zaragoza in central Spain with an eight-point lead in the prestigious six-round FIA Baja series, courtesy of a pair of victories in Saudi Arabia and Italy.

The narrow and winding rural tracks that make the Baja Spain such a popular event should be ideally suited to the Qatari’s WRC-type driving style and event officials have confirmed that a challenging route will be used for the event’s 25th anniversary.

Al-Attiyah’s title challenge will be supported by the 1993 Dakar Rally winner Bruno Saby and co-driver Guehennec, while Terranova and Palmer will be hoping to continue the run of form they showed in the recent Transiberico Rally.

"I have never been to this event before but I am looking forward to the challenge," said Al-Attiyah. "I want to win all the events in the championship, but I know it will not be easy to beat the Mitsubishis. We had a fantastic test last week in Portugal for three days. I drove for around 550km and we have made some significant improvements to the suspension and the engine. I am ready. The car is fantastic."

The Trebur-based X-raid team will also support three further cars in the Spanish round of the Baja series. The Russian crew of Leonid Novitskiy and Oleg Tyupenkin will run under the X-raid Russia banner and are joined by the Portuguese pairings of Filipe Campos/Jamie Baptista and Bernardo Moniz da Maia/Joana Sotto-Mayor running as the X-raid Portugal team.

Novitskiy has been a regular competitor in Cross-Country rallying for several seasons and finished sixth overall in the recent Transiberico Rally, the second round of the FIA World Cup, with X-raid.

Campos is one of the leading off-road drivers in Portugal and finished sixth overall in last year’s Baja Spain Aragon and third in Transiberico with the X-raid Team. Moniz da Maia was classified 13th overall in the recent Transiberico Rally in a Trebur-built BMW X3 CC.

The Baja Spain is the most popular round of the series and a trio of factory Mitsubishis, driven by Luc Alphand, Joan Roma and Hiroshi Masuoka, will line-up alongside Al-Attiyah’s closest championship challenger Boris Gadasin and a capacity entry of cars, bikes, trucks and quads at the start of the opening 5.42km super special stage at 17.16hrs on Thursday, July 17th.

The first 125.15km selective section starts at 09.26hrs on Friday morning (July 18th) from Calamocha to Teruel and will be followed by a punishing 206.81km special between Teruel and Longares on Friday afternoon before teams return to Zaragoza for service and parc ferme.

Saturday’s competitive action begins with a 133.12km selective section between Villamayor and Huesca from 07.32hrs and will precede a 238.16km section from Longares to Belchite via Alcaniz.

Event organisers will also pay tribute to the late Colin McRae, the former X-raid team driver who lost his life in a helicopter crash last September. A one-kilometre special stage in Zaragoza will be dedicated to his memory on Saturday evening.

There will be two final sections on Sunday, beginning with a run through a 126.74km section from Longares to Belchite and finishing with a repeat of the McRae Memorial stage in central Zaragoza from 12.51hrs.

"I competed on this event with Colin last year and we finished second overall," reflected Al-Attiyah’s co-driver Tina Thörner. "It is a nice gesture by the organisers to hold a stage in his memory.

"This event will be very difficult for us. The stages are narrow, twisty and there are stones in places. The heat should not be a problem. For sure, it will be hot, but when you have coped with the temperatures on the Desert Challenge in Dubai, it is not a big problem."

Nasser Al-Attiyah (QA)/Tina Thörner (S) BMW X3 CC
Luc Alphand (F)/Gilles Picard (F) Mitsubishi Pajero Evolution
Joan Roma (E)/Lucas Cruz (E) Mitsubishi Pajero Evolution
Hiroshi Masuoka (J)/Pascal Maimon (F) Mitsubishi Pajero Evolution
Boris Gadasin (RUS)/ Vladimir Korolev (RUS) Nissan Pick-Up
Bruno Saby (F)/Alain Guehennec (F) BMW X3 CC
Orlando Terranova (RA)/Lee Palmer (AUS) BMW X3 CC
Mark Blasquez (E)/Manuel Navarro (E) Fornasari RR450
Francesc Termens (E)/Alberto Pascual (E) Mitsubishi Pajero
Filipe Campos (P)/Jaime Baptista (P) BMW X3 CC
Leonid Novitskiy (RUS)/Oleg Tyupenkin (RUS) BMW X3 CC

1. Nasser Saleh Al-Attiyah (QA) 30 pts
2. Boris Gadasin (RUS) 22 pts
3. Laszlo Palik (H) 10 pts
4. Yayha Al-Helai (UAE) 7 pts
4. Tonnie van Deijne (NL) 7 pts
6. Miroslav Zapletal (CZ) 6 pts
7. Majed Al-Ghamdi (KSA) 5 pts
7. Paolo Abini (I) 5 pts
9. Balazs Szalai (H) 4 pts
10. Rajeh Al-Shammeri (KSA) 3 pts, etc

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- Yvette Theisen , Neil Perkins -  photo X-Raid