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 when his team member tasked with refuelling inadvertently did so using an old oil can, contaminating the fuel cell and causing his Mini 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 by a rollover. While his Toyota Hilux was able to reach the finish, limitations on what repairs could be made in the Badajoz bivouac means 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.

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

Leaders after Stage #3