The second day of the 2007 Rally Transiberico saw serious business begin today with competitors facing a menu of two passes over a 189km test that was more reminiscent of a WRC stage than the sort of desert.
Repsol Mitsubishi Ralliart’s Joan ‘Nani’ Roma and Frenchman Luc Alphand both profited from the day to improve on their overnight standings following yesterday’s prologue near host-town Estoril, Portugal, and are respectively 2nd and 4th this evening. Roma posted a fastest time on this morning’s SS2 and completed the second leg a mere 1m 41s behind former WRC champion Carlos Sainz who put in an unsurprisingly assertive display over today’s narrow, twisty selective sections. The Mitsubishi driver had no intention of being phased by his fellow Spaniard’s credentials, however, and even eased into the virtual lead for much of the morning before a gear selection problem allowed his rival to gain the upper hand in the overall standings.Tomorrow’s action brings survivors back across the border to Evora in Portugal via two attempts at a similarly challenging and even longer stage (220km) that promises to bring the local spectators out in numbers since many have been bitten by the rally-raid bug following the Dakar’s recent visits to their country.Nani Roma ‘It’s been a pretty good day overall. After switching to four wheels from motorbikes only relatively recently, it’s quite exciting to be challenging the likes Sainz on this sort of terrain. We all hit the ground running this morning and the pace was extremely fast from the outset. My co-driver Lucas Cruz and I quickly found ourselves in front and it was going very well until a ‘straight on’ dropped us perhaps half a minute. Then, a little later in the stage, I began to have trouble changing gear so I decided to lift a little rather than risk breaking everything. Carlos was able to profit from that to push hard over the rest of the stage to regain the overall lead.. by just one second!’Luc Alphand It was all going very well until I clipped a rock and damaged my steering rack about two-thirds of the way into the stage. It was quite hard driving without power steering and it was wiser to drive cautiously until the finish and then repair the damage at service. For the moment, the main thing is to keep Sainz in our sights It’s by no means over yet, but Carlos is clearly revelling in the conditions…’Dominique Serieys (Repsol Mitsubishi Ralliart Team Director) ‘The car performed very well today, as did the drivers, with Nani even posting the fastest time on SS2 despite his problem. You’ve got to give that to him. The objective tomorrow will be to keep the pressure on Carlos who will be first on the road again, and we saw how important a factor that can be when Nani eased into the lead this morning.’
