2024 Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge: Quintero blazes to Stage 3 win, Moraes goes down in blaze

Seth Quintero caught fire on Thursday en route to his maiden stage win in the Ultimate category. His Toyota Gazoo Racing team-mate Lucas Moraes literally caught fire en route to being eliminated from Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge contention.

Moraes and Quintero battled for the lead for much of Stage #3, being separated by just five seconds with forty kilometres remaining. However, Moraes got stuck on a dune with five km to go which Quintero took advantage of to pass him for the win. After getting out of the jam, Moraes continued to the end of the Selective Section when the sand ladders on the back of his Toyota Hilux came loose and were ignited by the vehicle’s exhaust, triggering a massive blaze that neither he nor co-driver Armand Monleón noticed until they overheard spectators shouting at them. Both were able to escape without injury and before the Hilux was fully engulfed by the flames.

“Never got out of a rally car so fast,” Moraes remarked. If not for the fire, he would have finished the stage in fourth behind Quintero, Yazeed Al-Rajhi, and Wednesday’s winner Guerlain Chicherit.

Quintero beat Al-Rajhi, the defending ADDC champion, by one-and-a-half minutes. The two and Chicherit’s finishes marked a podium sweep for the Hilux, with Al-Rajhi and Chicherit representing Overdrive Racing. Besides scoring his maiden Ultimate win, Quintero also moves from fourth into the overall lead, holding a 1:10 advantage on Nasser Al-Attiyah who finished Thursday in fourth after being stuck for twenty minutes with a mechanical issue.

“I didn’t expect to get a win this quickly, to be honest,” commented Quintero. “It’s been a long time coming and to be so young and even have the opportunity to drive these cars is amazing. Winning the stage is an honour for sure and to finally prove our pace, and prove the whole master plan of the (Red Bull) Junior Team working out.”

“But it’s hard to celebrate this one. We worked hard, we worked super hard for it all day and drove super hard. But, unfortunately for Lucas it didn’t turn out too well and it’s hard to be excited for myself.”

Fellow Hilux drivers Denis Krotov and Juan Cruz Yacopini were involved in a bizarre accident with Ultimate rival Martin Prokop. Approximately 200 kilometres into the stage, Prokop and Krotov were racing together over a dune when the latter tagged Prokop’s rear, causing their vehicles to get stuck together. Once they separated, Prokop realised his rear wheel was damaged, leaving him stationary and unable to move his Ford Raptor in time before Yacopini—who was going down the dune and could not see him quickly enough—crashed into his driver’s side door.

Prokop’s navigator Viktor Chytka dodged the incoming car and was only grazed in the leg. While everyone involved was not seriously hurt, Prokop accused Krotov of leaving him on his own without assisting him.

“We asked him to go help, but they just sat in the car doing nothing. We got our car to the side, stuck in the sand, he got in first gear and drove to hell. He left us there alone,” said Prokop.

“I am very upset about the behaviour of the Russian driver. I’ve never been happy in rallies where a Russian started alongside me because I know that he only thought of himself. Unfortunately, this confirmed that his sportsmanship wasn’t there. Something very serious could’ve happened. I’m sorry that he lost the race yesterday; not only that, he lost a ton of time and was already out of the overall, so he had nothing to race for and could have helped. It saddens me. You can be sure that if he needs help, he certainly won’t be getting it from me.”

Had the cars started at the same time as or before the bikes Moraes probably could have had something to douse the flames. The bikes began at 7:30 AM, hours following an overnight storm that soaked the bivouac, though racing through deserts in the cold was no problem for Ross Branch as he dominated from start to finish. His Hero team-mate Aaron Marè, the first rider on the stage, finished fourth. However, Branch will either need an improbable run or a lot of misfortunate to strike Marè as he trails his partner by over forty minutes.

Between the Hero bikes, Konrad Dąbrowski and Jean-Loup Lepan scrapped for the Rally2 lead. Dąbrowski, who inherited the top spot in the class after Michael Docherty‘s retirement, trailed Lepan early on before setting faster times from the refuel zone to the finish. He now leads Lepan by fifteen minutes.

Cristina Gutiérrez won the stage in Challenger to rebound from her Stage #1 exit. Rokas Baciuška stole second from overall class leader Austin Jones in the final sprint to the end for his third consecutive runner-up finish, narrowing the gap between them to 4:35.

An even closer battle is afoot in SSV, where Yasir Seaidan scored a convincing victory over Mansour Al-Helei that completely erased their three-minute gap. Seaidan now leads Al-Helei outright by just eighteen seconds, leaving no room for error entering the penultimate leg.

Stage #4 winners

Leaders after Stage #4