Gonçalves wins again

The Rally dos Sertões hosts tomorrow its last stage. Paulo Gonçalves got an important win and widened his margin over Cyril Després. Marcelo Medeiros won in quads and closes the gap on leader Robert Nahas; on UTVs Carlo Collet takes the lead after an engine failure by Bruno Sperancini

One day to go. On the 9th day of the Rally dos Sertões 21st edition, the competitors reached the city of Goianésia after a 264-km stage and liaisons that combined 550 km. And the competition showed its character: it is always unpredictable. In bikes, Paulo Gonçalves won for his own surprise after falling from his Speedbrain 450 and broke his roadbook, having to navigate using his hands do pull the references on the paper. His victory margin was of 3min26secs over Marc Coma (KTM).

"For me it was a tough day because I had a fall right after the refueling, and without the device that turns the road book automatically I had to do it riding the bike, so I slowed down. This was the reason I did not expect to go well today at all, so now I’m going to try and stay cool and focus tomorrow and not let this title escape", said Gonçalves. His unexpected win allowed the Portuguese to open the gap now to more than 25 minutes over Cyril Després, who did not have a good day, at least looking at the time table, since he was only 8th today.

"I was going well, in front of everybody and with a good margin over Paulo, but with 20 km to go I got lost on the GPS navigation and lost some minutes. But at least I got to the end of the stage", the Yamaha rider celebrated. First runner-up Marc Coma is back to the battle against his French rival. The gap between them is almost 12 minutes.

Jakub Przygonski and Fausto Mota completed the top-four-non-brazilians of the day. Jean Azevedo made the honor for his country being 5th and best Brazilian overall, in fourth with his Honda 450.

Quads
The best battle of the Sertões is in quads, and today it heated up even more after Marcelo Medeiros win with his Yamaha Raptor 700, four minutes ahead of current leader Robert Nahas (Honda TRX 700). The difference between them is now only 5min03s. And at the final day of the Sertões, this is the battle to be closely watched.

"Another good fight", said Medeiros. "We are closing, so let’s see what tomorrow will bring". Nahas is still trying to manage the lead. "We got a little gap and I choose a safe pace, but I came all the way having butterflies in my stomach. Tomorrow is the final day, so we have another battle coming up", he said.

UTVs
In UTVs, an exciting day to watch. Yesterday Bruno Sperancini/Lourival Roldan were on the overall lead with the Polaris RZR XP 900) 14min22sec in front of Rodrigo Varela/João Arena (CanAm Comander), and 8h45min in front of Carlo Collet/Marcos Gouvea (CanAm Maverick).

The day reserved a real turnover in the category and messed up the rankings. Sperancini/Roldan had an engine problem, and the lead was supposed to go to Varela/Arena; the two youngsters were also surprised with a broken well a hundred kilometers away of where Sperancini stopped. Both were penalized for not reaching the waypoints, not finishing the stage in the maximum time allowed and not accomplishing the maximum time in the final liaison. Varela got a 5h30min penalty; Sperancini had a bigger punishment: had to change the engine, getting more three hours added.

This open the way for Collet/Gouveia, and the duo has now one hand on the cup. They had problems at stage three, between Pirenópolis and Uruaçu, and did not finish the day, and got a 9h30min penalty. Barely out of chances, they choose to have fun and push to the limit to win the stages - and today’s was his seventh. Collet’s persistency paid up and he is now 3h29mins in front of Varela, who at least got to keep the second place overall. "Consistency is key in the Sertões. This rally in incredible and unpredictable and our choice never to leave the competition is bringing us the benefits", said Collet.

9th Stage - BIKES (unofficial) 1º PAULO GONCALVES 03:19:30 2º MARC COMA 03:23:04 3º JAKUB PRZYGONSKI 03:30:04 4º FAUSTO MOTA 03:30:42 5º JEAN AZEVEDO 03:34:15 6º RICARDO MARTINS 03:35:56 7º MICHAEL METGE 03:36:56 8º CYRIL DESPRES 03:38:26 9º LEANDRO SILVEIRA 03:40:53 10º RAUL LIMA 03:46:59 Overall - BIKES (unofficial) 1º PAULO GONCALVES 28:59:52 - 2º CYRIL DESPRES 29:25:41 +00:25:49.2 3º MARC COMA 29:37:11 +00:37:19.5 4º JEAN AZEVEDO 30:15:16 +01:15:24.5 5º JAKUB PRZYGONSKI 30:30:18 +01:30:26.9 6º MICHAEL METGE 31:16:52 +02:16:59.1 7º RICARDO MARTINS 31:22:05 +02:22:13.1 8º FAUSTO MOTA 31:24:32 +02:24:40.2 9º RAUL LIMA 32:54:40 +03:54:48.2 10º EZAIR BOSSA 33:30:23 +04:30:31.5 9th Stage - QUADS (unofficial) 1º MARCELO MEDEIROS 03:43:24 2º ROBERT NAHAS 03:47:26 3º MAURO ALMEIDA 04:18:05 4º RAFAL SONIK 04:35:20 5º RICARDO PURRI 04:36:34 6º DANIEL MAZZUCCO 04:58:23 7º TOM ROSA 05:30:00 8º MOHAMED ABU-ISSA 05:30:00 9º EDNARG MARQUES 05:30:00 Overall - QUADS (unofficial) 1º ROBERT NAHAS 33:39:26 - 2º MARCELO MEDEIROS 33:45:06 +00:05:39.8 3º MAURO ALMEIDA 37:07:32 +03:28:05.9 4º RAFAL SONIK 39:04:21 +05:24:55.6 5º DANIEL MAZZUCCO 39:14:25 +05:34:59.5 6º MOHAMED ABU-ISSA 53:09:26 +19:29:59.9 7º EDNARG MARQUES 54:39:01 +20:59:34.7 8º TOM ROSA 55:35:18 +21:55:51.9 9th Stage - UTVs (unofficial) 1º MARCOS REGADAS FILHO/ANDREWS COSTA 03:55:21 2º CARLO COLLET/MARCOS GOUVEA 04:39:46 3º BRUNO SPERANCINI /LOURIVAL ROLDAN 05:30:00 4º RODRIGO VARELA/JOAO ARENA 05:30:00 5º CARLOS AMBROSIO/DIONIZIO SILVA NETO 05:30:00 Overall - UTVs (unofficial) 1º CARLO COLLET/MARCOS GOUVEA 46:40:28 - 2º RODRIGO VARELA/JOAO ARENA 50:10:06 +03:29:37.9 3º BRUNO SPERANCINI /LOURIVAL ROLDAN 51:55:43 +05:15:15.1 4º MARCOS REGADAS FILHO/ANDREWS COSTA 65:03:41 +18:23:13.4 10th and Final Stage, Saturday, August 3rd GOIANÉSIA (GO) - GOIÂNIA (GO) Initial Liaison: 7 km Stage: 123 km Final Liaison: 160 km TOTAL: 290 km