Cristiano wins on his début (foto: David Santos Jr/ www.webventure.com.br)
With his calm manners, Cristiano Souza showed up quiet, but determined, and made his competition eat dust in the 17th edition of Sertões International Rally. Transmaquinas team pilot made a beautiful figure, and conquered his first title in the main Brazilian off-road competition, where he competed for the first time.
Riding a Suzuki 450, Cristiano made a beautiful battle against the favorite Carlo Collet, who participated in this edition of Rally Dakar.
Cristiano, leader of the Brazilian Championship in the category, had a strategy of pushing hard on the gas in the beginning, and have plenty of time to spend during the final stages. He said he would do that in order to spare his quad during the Marathon Stage.
The pilot won the first five specials, leaving Carlo Collet with four of them, and Heronaldo de Andrade with one.
Sertões 2007champion on quads, Maurício Ramos, aka Ìndio, said during the race, that Cristianos victory would be an incentive to the category, and would show that there is a chance to everyone on quads, since from the very beginning, only Rober Nahas, Carlo Collet and Índio had won the race.
In the end of the ten specials, with another Collets victory, their difference had gone down from less than one hour to 23min30.
Cristianos constant and efficient rhythm could be noticed by the average speed during this edition of Sertões. The pilot reached around 81.07 km/h during the fifth stage, the fastest on quads, against Collets 79.7 km/h. Having achieved this result, he did not pass 60 km/h average during the following specials.
Born in Patos de Minas, Cristiano has had a meteoric career in rallies. On his second year in off-road, the pilot has won the third edition of Rally de Barretos, and now he is going to climb the highest step of Sertões podium.
Este texto foi escrito por: Redação Webventure
Last modified: julho 3, 2009
