2024 BP Ultimate Rally-Raid: Drivers fall in cross-border Stage 3

Stage #3 of the BP Ultimate Rally-Raid took the World Rally-Raid Championship across borders from Grândola, Portugal, to Badajoz, Spain. The longest stage of the race at 388 kilometres, it was certainly a long day for much of the field.

After the muddy debacle over the first two days, some were unable to even begin the leg. Aliyyah Koloc retired after her team was unable to repair her damaged engine, while getting stuck in the mud led to a myriad of mechanical issues for Gonçalo Guerreiro that forced him to drop out. Stage #2 SSV winner Yasir Seaidan suffered a string of vehicle problems at the start of the leg. Eduard Pons‘ Ultimate début was cut short by the belt and alternator support breaking just eight kilometres in.

Vaidotas Žala exited following a bizarre development in which a team member tasked with refuelling inadvertently poured the gasoline into a container that previously held oil, contaminating the fuel cell when it went into the car and causing the engine to lose fuel pressure ten kilometres after the start. His Mini allies João Ferreira and Carlos Sainz had more luck as they finished third and fourth, albeit not a fully clean day as both received speeding penalties; Sainz’s car also took a beating, losing his hood and breaking a windshield wiper which greatly reduced his visibility.

Yazeed Al-Rajhi posed the greatest challenger to overall leader Nasser Al-Attiyah when he entered Friday trailing by just twenty seconds in the overall. Al-Rajhi took the lead as the stage hit the 100-km mark, only for his hopes to be dashed when he slid into a ditch and rolled onto his passenger’s side door. While his Toyota Hilux was able to reach the finish, marathon rules for the bivouac mean the crash could come back to haunt him on Saturday. Toyota colleague Lucas Moraes inherited the lead but had to slow his pace due to a tyre puncture, which Al-Attiyah capitalised on to win. Moraes’ Toyota Gazoo Racing team-mate Saood Variawa was handed a two-hour penalty and a suspended disqualification for speeding multiple times in a Speed Control Zone that mandated a limit of 50 km/h; his navigator François Cazalet explained he was feeling dizzy and was unaware they had entered the zone, so he told his driver to continue at his usual pace.

Sébastien Loeb and João Dias, who were top two overall in Challenger after Stage #2, both experienced vehicle trouble—Loeb in particular had an overheating engine—that ended their hopes of winning. Rokas Baciuška narrowly edged out Luís Portela Morais by two seconds to win the stage in the class and take the lead; both drivers’ final times were even faster than Moraes’ and Ferreira’s to finish second and third among all FIA cars. A similar development happened the previous day when Al-Attiyah held off Loeb for the outright stage victory by half a minute.

Stage #2 bike winner Sebastian Bühler was chased down by overall leader Tosha Schareina during the first half of the stage before Schareina cleared him halfway. António Maio initially finished third behind them but was slapped with a six-minute penalty that relegated him to fourth as Adrien Van Beveren made the stage podium.

While Bruno Santos‘ Rally2 domination continues, Bradley Cox finished third to move up five positions in the class overall to third and past Mathieu Dovèze for the lead among W2RC riders. It is a tenuous advantage, however, as Cox is only ahead by 1:39.

Unlike other stages, the FIM and FIA classes started just thirty-five minutes apart, a quirk made possible as they were assigned different roadbooks as they hoped to reach Spain before dark. Both sides ran separate routes at the start before they reached a transfer zone to switch paths, meaning the FIA ran on the FIM’s course and vice versa, before the former went onto their own path. Excluding Selective Sections, the FIA’s stage stretched 746 km total while the FIM ran on just 614 km.

With the rally now in Spain, the Portugal-only National class stayed behind and ended their race after Stage #2. Although racing with the W2RC, João Ramos opted to sit out the rest of the rally in protest of a two-minute speeding penalty he received on Thursday, which he attributed to a glitch in his ERTF navigation system; the FIA heard his complaint the next day but threw it out on grounds that the GPS was functioning as usual.

Stage #3 winners

Class	Number	Competitor	Team	Time
Ultimate	201	Nasser Al-Attiyah	Nasser Racing	3:31:47
Challenger	300	Rokas Baciuška	Can-Am Factory Team	3:33:32
SSV	405	João Monteiro*	South Racing Can-Am	3:42:50
Stock	500	Carlos Jorge Mendes*	Carlos Jorge Mendes	4:45:45
RallyGP	68	Tosha Schareina	Monster Energy Honda Rally Team	3:28:03
Rally2	40	Bruno Santos*	Momento TT Motos	3:31:02
Rally3	51	Salvador Amaral	Wingmotor Honda	3:50:30
Quad	174	Manuel Andújar	7240 Team	4:00:43
Open	700	Johan Senders*	Johan Senders	4:09:13

* – Not competing in World Rally-Raid Championship

Leaders after Stage #3

Class	Number	Competitor	Team	Time
Ultimate	201	Nasser Al-Attiyah	Nasser Racing	6:34:21
Challenger	300	Rokas Baciuška	Can-Am Factory Team	6:45:56
SSV	405	João Monteiro*	South Racing Can-Am	6:57:51
Stock	500	Carlos Jorge Mendes*	Carlos Jorge Mendes	10:06:11
RallyGP	68	Tosha Schareina	Monster Energy Honda Rally Team	6:34:44
Rally2	40	Bruno Santos*	Momento TT Motos	6:44:34
Rally3	50	Gonçalo Amaral	Wingmotor Honda	7:28:47
Quad	174	Manuel Andújar	7240 Team	7:42:21
Open	700	Johan Senders*	Johan Senders	7:50:28
National	706	Bernardo Sousa* #	Benimoto Racing	3:11:51

# – Race ended after Stage #2