Login | Password dimenticata? | Registrati

Africa Race, Bou-Jerif Agadir: Schlesser and Pellicer win in solo

In Enduro

05 gennaio 2009

Jean Louis Schlesser and José Manuel Pellicer outstrip the other competitors on this fifth Africa Race stage. They now have a comfortable advance on the overall classification before the rest day, tomorrow in Agadir.

The whole stage went really well for the bike category: José Manuel Pellicer arrived first thanks to his BMW, 21’39” before Arnaud JACQUART’s KTM while Thibault Chatelier is third, but still at 1h52’ from the leader.

It’s not the same story for the cars with the first real mechanical problems appeared and modified the whole rally classification. Unfortunately, Andrey Ivanov’s NISSAN Pathfinder revealed an important decrease of its oil pressure, on the road to the departure line that restrained him from taking the Start of today’s 296 KM Special. He didn’t want to risk a mechanical problem on the track. In fact, that would prevent him from showing up at all the checking points and as a consequence risking to be disqualified. The Russian joined the finish line thanks to his assistance truck which tracked him on the road all the way so he could start the engine again a few minutes just to pass the last checking control.

Ivanov is now 6th on the overall classification despite the 13 hours penalty he received. Jean Louis Schlesser’s most serious challenger is not a danger anymore, so it’s not surprising he easily won this stage, that he really enjoyed : « I have been driving through Morocco since a very long time but I’d never done this awesome first part of today’s special. The route gathered many rolling parts but also technical ones with quite a lot of navigation. That gave us a beautiful stage. I am disappointed to hear about Ivanov’s trouble but he is still in the race and we will have the chance to fight again. The rest day is really good news as the first part of the Africa Race was particularly tough ». Behind the POWERADE buggy, Abdelhamid Abouyoussef driving his Buggy 4x4 Toyota crossed the line with the second time ahead of the Russian Artem Varentsov who continues to amaze everyone with his big Toyota Land Cruiser. On the overall classification, Varentsov is now acquiring the second place in front of the Egyptian pilot.

In the trucks category, the special was much tighter. Indeed, even if he had to deal with a deflate tire, Hans Bekx and his DAF won the special in front of the UNIMOG of Giacomo Vismara for a single second !

As for Jan de Rooy ‘s IVECO, he lost 3’45” today and this is mainly caused by a return of the dutch driver to help out his compatriot. He now concedes more than 12’ to Hans Bekx, which means nothing before the sandy stages of the south Moroccan and the Mauritanian dunes.