Qatar Baja 2004

Positive performance of Nani Roma in his first race with Mitsubishi
The Repsol driver finishes second in Qatar, in his first time driving a car in a Raid
 The first time Nani Roma has taken part in a Raid at the wheel of a Mitsubishi has turned into a positive second place finish for the Repsol rider. But even more important than his position in the final classification of a race, won by local driver Nasser Al Hattia, is the fact that Roma and his navigator Henri Magne have been able to make more than 600 kilometres without any problem with their Mitsubishi Montero MPR9, the same car Andrea Mayer used during the past Dakar 2004. The race started on Friday with a prologue stage, which Roma and Magne finished in third place.  Just arrived on Friday morning from Madrid, where Repsol YPF had held the presentation of the teams sponsored by the company at the Barcelona-Dakar 2005, Nani had hardly three hours to get used to Qatar between getting off the plane and into the car. The second day of the raid, Saturday, was made up by a route, which the drivers had to run twice, with a total length of approx. 600 kilometres. According to Nani Roma: its been a very positive experience. The kilometres weve raced are more important than the final position. Our aim was to finish the race without making any mistake and we achieved it. The car, which is not the one Im going to use at the Dakar but a Montero from two years ago, a MPR9, worked perfectly well; weve had no mechanical problems at all and we havent broken anything. In the first of the two runs we got lost, because the indications in the Road Book were quite bad and had several incoherencies, but we were able to be much faster the second time, improving the times significantly, setting a similar time to that of Nasser, who won the race. Now I know what it means to be a whole day racing with a car like this; I got a good pace and Ive been able to always keep a good safety margin. In addition, this race has served to learn how to change the pace, because weve been changing from fast tracks to areas with dunes and other complicated ones with a lot of rocks, where you have to change your pace really quickly. Its been with no doubt a very positive experience. Well stay here testing for two more days according to the testing plan weve made-up to prepare the Dakar