Unsurprisingly, Tosha Schareina (Honda) won the Prologue and then both special stages to take the motorcycle laurels at the Baja TT Dehesa Extremadura. Antoine Sanchez claimed the 25 points for sealing victory in the quad category.
After the administration and technical checks on Friday, May 1st, the first day of racing on the fourth round of the FIM Bajas World Cup was a busy one with the Prologue in the morning followed by an opening stage of 113.90km in the afternoon.
Although Schareina stood out from the opening kilometres, he was still wary of his compatriot Javi Vega (Kove), who finished second on the Prologue and completed the first stage just 7min 05sec behind him.
Portugal’s Jorge Brandao (Honda) held third place, 18min 19.3sec behind Schareina, and was followed by FIM Bajas World Cup leader Mohammed Al-Balooshi (Fantic) and Edgar Canet (KTM).
In the quad category, the opening stage win went to the Frenchman Antoine Sanchez, who finished ahead of Jorge Sampaio and Alejandro Garcia, who received a two-hour penalty. Saudi rider Hani Al-Noumesi, the leader of the FIM Bajas World Cup, was not on the start line. Saturday’s second stage covered 320.13km of selective sections and was divided into parts with a large transfer zone in between.
The fastest riders took over six hours to complete the stage. Bruno Santos (Husqvarna) and Edgar Canet (KTM) distinguished themselves by chasing down the leading Schareina. They finished in second and third places, 2min 51.8sec and 5min 37.2sec behind, respectively.
Vega was fourth, followed by Al-Balooshi, who experienced problems with his electronic road book. Over the two stages that were held in rain and thick mud, Schareina won comfortably with Vega holding on to second place and finishing 18min 33.7sec behind with Canet moving up to third overall, 23min 56.5sec adrift.
Santos and Al-Balooshi found themselves just off the podium until Canet withdrew his bike from the Parc Fermé zone and was no longer ranked in the overall classification, thus promoting Santos to third. Brandao climbed to fourth and Al-Balooshi was fifth.
In the quad section, Sanchez finished in front of Sampaio, but Garcia did not start the second stage.
The FIM Bajas World Cup remains in Spain for the Baja Aragón from July 25th to 27th.
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