X-RAID TEAM NEWS
TRANSIBERICO RALLY (May 20th-25th, 2008)
FIA Cross-Country Rally World Cup, round 2
For immediate release
Friday, May 16th, 2008
TERRANOVA JOINS BAJA CUP LEADER
AL-ATTIYAH FOR TRANSIBERICO RALLY
X-raid duo set for showdown with Mitsubishi in Iberia
TREBUR (Germany): The AlgoDyne Green Power Racing Team has entered a pair of official BMW X3CCs in the 2008 Transiberico Rally, round two of the FIA Cross-Country Rally World Cup, which takes place in Spain and Portugal between May 20th-25th.
Qatar’s Nasser Saleh Al-Attiyah and Swedish co-driver Tina Thörner will be joined on the Iberian Peninsula by the Argentinean driver Orlando Terranova and his Australian co-driver and former Dakar enduro rider Lee Palmer.
Al-Attiyah is the current leader of the FIA International Cup for Bajas, after taking a pair of outright wins in his diesel-engined X3CC in Saudi Arabia and Italy. He was also one of the pace setters in the recent Central Europe Rally through Hungary and Romania and is relishing another opportunity to compete against the defending Dakar Rally champions.
“I will travel to the Transiberico Rally directly from the Cyprus Rally,” said Al-Attiyah. “It will be another fantastic opportunity to test and develop the BMW X3 and see if we can match and beat the factory Mitsubishis on stages that are more suited to my WRC-type driving style.”
Terranova and Palmer finished a superb second overall in last year’s gruelling Por Las Pampas Rally across Chile and Argentina and set three fastest stage times and several second fastest times. The South American rookie is one of the X-raid team’s bright hopes for the future and is relishing gaining experience on the Transiberico event.
The X-raid team will face a trio of factory Mitsubishis on Europe’s premier cross-country event, which will form the second of four rounds of this year’s shortened FIA Cross-Country Rallies World Cup. Several competitive Portuguese and Spanish drivers also bolster the bumper entry list.
These European selective sections are more like traditional WRC-type stages than the desert terrain that is normally associated with this motor sporting discipline, but X-raid team personnel are fully aware that this type of terrain may well constitute several specials on the 2008 Dakar Rally next January.
The Transiberico Rally will start and finish at the Portuguese coastal town of Estoril, west of Lisbon, for a third successive season, although the route does take teams across the border into Spain for an overnight halt at Badajoz.
There will also be rest halts in Castelo Branco and Evora in Portugal, with the latter region associated with the Baja Portugal, round six of the FIA Baja Cup which takes place later in the season. Nine selective sections, totalling 1,520km, have been planned in a total route of 2,600km and this is a slight increase on 2007.
Leading starters
1. Stéphane Peterhansel (F)/Jean-Paul Cottret (F) Mitsubishi Pajero Evolution
2. Nasser Al-Attiyah (QA)/Tina Thörner (S) BMW X3 CC
3. Luc Alphand (F)/Gilles Picard (F) Mitsubishi Pajero Evolution
4. Joan Roma (E)/Lucas Cruz (E) Mitsubishi Pajero Evolution
5. Miguel Barbosa (P)/Miguel Ramalho (P) Proto Dessoude 4×4
6. Orlando Terranova (RA)/Lee Palmer (AUS) BMW X3 CC
7. Francesc Termens (E)/Alberto Pascoal (E) Mitsubishi Pajero
8. Krysztof Holowczyc (PL)/Jean-Marc Fortin (B) Nissan Navara
9. Filipe Campos (P)/Jaime Baptista (P) BMW X3 CC
10. Leonid Novistsky (RUS)/Oleg Tyupenkin (RUS) BMW X3 CC
Ends
Further information and photos are available at www.x-raid.de or contact Yvette Theisen at X-raid GmbH, Tel: + 49 (0) 6147 204670, E-mail: y.theisen@x-raid.de.