South Racing’s Portuguese driver Ricardo Porém increased his lead in the 2017 Portuguese National Championship of Cross-Country Rallies (CNTT) by taking an impressive victory in Baja TT Idanha-A-Nova, the fourth round of the series, which finished in the Castelo Branco region on Saturday.

The Ford Ranger driver and navigator Hugo Magalhães led after the two runs through the Prologue stage on Friday evening before slipping behind early leader João Ramos on the first of the two longer selective sections through remote Portuguese rural terrain after collecting a puncture.

Porém had already finished second in Baja de Loulé and won Baja Capital Dos Vinhos de Portugal this season to add to a retirement at Baja do Pinhal. He arrived in Idanha-A-Nova leading the series by 11 points from Alejandro Martins and has now extended that advantage heading to the next round at Baja Portalegre 500 at the end of October after setting the fastest time on the last stage where Ramos suffered mechanical problems and retired.

“This is a good result for Ricardo, winning the Prologue yesterday and then finishing second on the stage this morning after having a puncture,” said South Racing’s managing director Scott Abraham.

“He fought back hard. We are a little fortunate to walk away from Idanha by extending our lead in the championship. Unfortunately for our title rivals, Alejandro Martins and João Ramos, they both had mechanical failures and this puts us in a good position for the championship moving on to Portalegre. There we know Ricardo is very strong.

“This also brings an end to seven weeks of back-to-back racing with the team racing in South America and Europe. I extend a big thank you to everyone for all their efforts over this hectic period of time."

"We now move on to the penultimate round of the Polish Championship and Morocco at the start of October.”

Action got underway with two runs through a Prologue stage of 6.81km and Porém was the man in form from the outset in his Ford Ranger. He carded a time of 5min 21.92sec to snatch a lead of 1.32 seconds over João Ramos, with Alejandro Martins, Alexandre Franco and Paulo Fereira rounding off the top five on run one.

The South Racing driver was slightly quicker on his second run as well and that enabled him to extend his overnight lead over Ramos to 1.54 seconds.

The bulk of the competitive action took place on Saturday (September 9) and used two selective sections of 141.80km from Idanha to Idanha via Rosmaninhal and a longer stage of 188.85km, starting and finishing in Idanha and running through Penamacor.

Ramos was 50 seconds quicker than Porém through the first passage control, after 68.14km, and his Portuguese rival completed the stage in 1hr 46min 44sec. That was 3min 11sec faster than Porém, who punctured, and Ramos duly snatched the outright lead. Fereira slotted into a distant third.

Porém set the pace on the second selective section and headed Ramos by 1min 27sec through the checkpoint after 50.79km and extended that lead to 3min 49sec through 92.50km to snatch the virtual rally lead after Ramos stopped.

The South Racing driver’s advantage was 9min 10sec over Franco heading to the last of the checkpoints and that lead grew to a virtual 9min 43sec after 133.84km.

The Portuguese held on to claim the stage win and outright victory by the margin of 10min 35sec over Paulo Fereira, who overtook Franco on the final stage.

2017 Baja TT Idanha-A-Nova – final positions

1. Ricardo Porém (PRT)/Hugo Magalhães (PRT) Ford Ranger     4hrs 32min 47sec

2. Paulo Fereira (PRT)/Jorge Monteiro (PRT) Toyota Hilux         4hrs 43min 22sec  @10.35

3. Alexandre Franco (PRT)/Rui Franco (PRT) BMW Evo XI           4hrs 43min 46sec  @10.59

4. Luis Recuenco (ESP)/Manuel Navarro (ESP) Toyota Hilux      4hrs 49min 17sec  @16.30

5. Lino Carapeta (PRT)/Rui António (PRT) Range Rover Evoque 5hrs 00min 50sec  @28.03

6. Luis Dias (PRT)/Mario Feio (PRT) Nissan                                   5hrs 21min 07sec  @48.20

Nasser Al-Attiyah, co-driven by Matthieu Baumel (Toyota Hilux Overdrive), firmly defeated two Poles.

Aron Domżała co-driven by Szymon Gospodarczyk (Toyota Hilux Overdrive) and Jakub Przygoński partnered by Tom Colsoul (Mini John Cooper Works Rally) on the second run of the stage at the military ground in Drawsko Pomorskie.

Thereby, the driver from Qatar extended his lead over the Pole to more than 4 minutes and made a sizeable step on his way to the second victory in a row in ORLEN Baja Poland.

This time Aron Domżała avoided serious problems and was present at the finish of the 215,90 kilometres long SS 3 Drawsko 2 with the second fastest result.

Thanks to that result, the fifth competitor in the current classification of the FIA World Cup for Cross Country Rallies has moved to the fifth place in the overall standings and closed the gap to Vladimir Vasilyev.

Due to Krzysztof Hołowczyc's mishap, whose car broke on the sixtieth kilometer of the afternoon's stage, Bernhard Ten Brinke (Toyota Hilux Overdrive) was elevated to the fastest four of the rally.

Vladimir Vasilyev reached the fifth result, but his loss to the leader is quite large and it is 6 minutes and 27 seconds now. The next driver who did not imply his contentment was Nicholas Fuchs (HRX Ford) and he took the sixth time.

The driver from Peru, who has Polish origins (his grandmother's surname was Sierlecki and she speaks Polish as well), has moved up to the seventh place in the overall classification in his debut in ORLEN Baja Poland.

The 9^th round of the FIA World Cup For Cross-Country Rallies is declining. Four stages, 58 kilometres long altogether, in the area of Dobra are waiting for the drivers who are going to arrive there tomorrow. The winner of this year's ORLEN Baja Poland edition will be known about 2 o'clock.

We managed to finish the stage without any problems. It was not easy, though. Plenty of puddles were lurking on the road and in some places it was incredibly slippery. We are planning to drive the same strategy tomorrow.

Nasser Al-Attiyah (Toyota Hilux Overdrive), the man who has reached two victories in Dakar Rally, took the first place in ORLEN Baja Poland for the second time in a row.

The driver from Qatar, due to this success, is near to the triumph in the overall classification of the FIA World Cup for Cross Country Rallies. After the success in Szczecin, he has to gain only 9 more points in the next rallies to seal the trophy.

Jakub Przygoński (Mini John Cooper Works Rally), the runner-up of the series, stood on the second place of the podium. He managed to win the last but one stage of the rally as well. Owing to this result, ORLEN Team's driver has strengthened his second place in The FIA World Cup for Cross-country Rallies.

Przygoński tried to attack Al-Attiyah on the first Sunday stage but the puncture that he had on the next stage brought the loss of more than a minute and a half to the leader. 

The podium is filled by Bernhard Ten Brinke who is co-driven by a competitor well-known from the FIA World Rally Championship, Stephane Prevot (Toyota Hilux Overdrive). Vladimir Vasilev (Mini John Cooper Works Rally), 2014 World Cup winner, took the fourth place, close behind the Dutch-Belgian duo.

Aron Domżała finished ORLEN Baja Poland on the fifth place (Toyota Hilux Overdrive). The driver (partnered by Szymon Gospodarczyk) and Krzysztof Hołowczyc scored the same time at the last stage. That is really unusual in cross country rallies.

Miroslav Zapletal, co-driven by Bartosz Momot (Ford F150 Evo), reached the finish behind Domżała and Gospodarczyk. Nicholas Fuchs (HRX Ford), known from the starts in WRC 2, nailed the seventh place. He won both runs of the stage Lubieszyn.

Peter Van Mekrsteijn, the Dutch driver (Toyota Hilux Overdrive), occupied eight place. Adel Hussein Abdull (Nissan Patrol Y62) and Adam Piec (Toyota Land Cruiser) took the ninth and tenth place respectively. These drivers also were on the first two places in T2 class.

Baja Poland was the fifth round of Polish Cross-country Championship as well. In this series, Jakub Przygoński was the winner of the event. The podium was filled by Bernard Ten Brinke and Vladimir Vasilev.

ORLEN Team's driver won also the FIA Central European Zone Championship for Cross Country Rallies. Aron Domżała took the second place and Miroslav Zapletal was placed on the third step of the podium. 

Motorcyclists' competition was dominated by ORLEN Team's riders. They covered the whole podium. Adam Tomiczek was the winner. He won only by 7 seconds on Maciek Giemza. Kuba Piątek stepped the last place of the podium.

FIA World Cup for Cross Country Rallies (classification afeter 9 rounds)

1.         Nasser Al-Attiyah (QAT)                240
2.         Jakub Przygoński (POL)               159
3.         Khalid Al-Qassimi (ZEA)               105
4.         Aron Domżała (POL)                      96
5.         Yasir Seaidan (SAU)                      96
6.         Mohammed Abu Issa (QAT)         84
7.         Martin Prokop (CZE)                      72
8.        Miroslav Zapletal (CZE)                 55
9.        Leeroy Poulter (ZAF)                      42
10.      Adel Hussein Abdulla (QAT)        41

Nasser Al-Attiyah and Matthieu Baumel (Toyota Hilux Overdrive) after winning yesterday's superspecial stage, took the fastest time on the first run through the longest stage of the rally (215,90 kilometres).

The stage was traditionally placed at the firing range in Drawsko Pomorskie. Due to this success, the driver from Qatar is strongly leading Baja Poland.

"It is positive stage win. I am not tired too much and I am ready for the second one." He said

"The weather conditions are very tough. However, we did a fine choice of the tyres and they are doing they job.

Jakub Przygoński, in his Mini John Cooper Works Rally, has had the second time at the finish of the stage. Polish driver is second in the overall classification of the FIA World Cup for Cross Country Rallies as well.

Just as last year, the marathon in Drawsko Pomorskie was not lucky for Krzysztof Hołowczyc, who has won the event five times. He is driving the latest evolution of Mini John Cooper Works Rally.

1997 European Rally Champion had a puncture and was forced to change a wheel on the stage. Additionally to that, the driver from Olsztyn was struggling with the wipers failure and eventually lost above 6 minutes to Al-Attiyah. That crosses him off from the fight for the win in Baja Poland.