Nasser managed to beat the sand in the special today and placed first (foto: David Santos Jr/ www.webventure.com.br)
Invited by Webventure, Kleber Tinoco, RN 1500 Rally organizer, will make daily comments on Sertões International Rally 2009. Check it out:
As people use to say, Sertões 7th day was suffered. A very complicated stage, full of challenges, intense heat, where the sands made their victims In cars, for example, among 29 that started, only 18 managed to finish the special in the regular time.
The opinion is unanimous: this is the most difficult edition ever, and obviously, many cars stay on the way, outlining a small (and bold) grid for the arrival in Natal.
Bikes
News of the day was the performance of talented Nielsen Bueno (Enduro Brazilian Champion, gold medal in the Six Days) that, as a Sertões rookie, had a great result, placing second in the 7th special, only 1 second behind Zé Hélio, who won again and is keeping everything under control!
This stage made it clear that Denisio Nascimento decided not to ride so fast and is just managing his position ahead of the third place. With this strategy, he made only the sixth best time today. By the way, leaving things as they are, and just checking out how it stays, is the policy of the first five
Thats why in general classification, everything is exactly like everyday: Zé Hélio leads, with Denisio Nascimento in second, Juca Bala, Guto Klaumann, and Rodolpho Mattheis fifth. My opinion is that this result wont change anymore.
Quads
Carlo Collet strikes again!
While Cristiano Souza goes on smoothly, Collet is pushing hard, trying to catch up and reduce the leaders advantage, and wishes the leaders quad breaks or changes the route, I mean: the guy is ready to strike!
Winning the 7th stage, Collet managed to reduce the difference to 39 minutes. It is still too much time to catch up in three days but
Cars
The mess is back! Spain on the 6th stage, Qatar on the 7th. Nasser Al-Attyah won the stage with enough advantage to shrink the difference and assume the general leadership with only 1m41s slack over Carlos Sainz.
Jean Azevedo was brilliant, overcoming all difficulties of the route, problems in the car and internal communication equipment, only to arrive, once more, in third place, behind the Touraegs.
I would like to highlight Felipe Bibas/Emerson Cavassim performance, since they are ascending, and made the 4th best time in the special, and Riamburgo Ximenes, who did not finish the section and fell down the general classification.
It looks like the Volkswagen team private race is giving us high excitement in the final stages of the rally, but I sincerely believe that Sainz will win anyway, even if the team has to influence the results!
Given that Touaregs are sitting on the 1st and 2nd places, lets talk about the Brazilian pilots: Jean Azevedo stabilized in his 3rd place, and is the leader among the ordinary cars with a good margin (1h44m) ahead of Roberto Reijers/Rogério Almeida that are in 4th, keeping a difference of 33m14s ahead of Felipe Bibas/Emerson Cavassim that assumed 5th place, with only 9m33s to Luis Facco/Silvio Deusdará, 6º colocados.
This scenario is practically definitive among the cars, and I do not believe in important changes for this category, at least strategically speaking, since all of them are only maintaining their positions.
8th day
The 8th stage will not be any different from the previous ones: it will not be easy on anyone. There are 421 Km between Petrolina and Juazeiro do Norte, with 213 Km of special section.
The dreaded heat will be even more scorching, and this clearly wears out machines and pilots, but as the common goal is to finish the race, we shall have no news tomorrow. Lets wait!
Este texto foi escrito por: Kleber Tinoco, specially for Webventure
Last modified: julho 1, 2009
