Racing Lancer makes debut on muddy Super Special

FIA INTERNATIONAL CUP FOR CROSS COUNTRY BAJAS
BAJA PORTALEGRE 500
31 OCTOBER 2008
LEG 1

NERPOR - NERPOR (Portugal):
Road section - 7.27km
SS1 (Super Special) - 6.18km
Road section - 6.71km
Total distance: 20.16km

THE NEW MITSUBISHI RACING LANCER MAKES DEBUT ON THE MUDDY SUPER-SPECIAL IN PORTUGAL SUPER SPECIAL CLASSIFICATION

The cross-country rallying career of the brand new Mitsubishi Racing Lancer kicked off today with the short super-special which served as appetiser for this weekend's 2008 Baja Portalegre 500. However, while Team Repsol Mitsubishi Ralliart would obviously have preferred to have seen the new machine's competition record begin with a fastest time on the short, wet 6.18km test, Stéphane Peterhansel/Jean-Paul Cottret (France) lost valuable seconds when they nudged a barrier shortly before the finish and were finally accredited with the day's 7th fastest time.

"With all the rain that has fallen in this part of the world recently, the cold, muddy conditions weren't easy, especially since we came here directly from a very long test in the south of Morocco. I was therefore a little short of match practice over this sort of narrow, slippery terrain," explained Stéphane Peterhansel who has been entrusted with the mission of giving the Racing Lancer its debut on the Baja Portalegre 500. "I failed to settle into a good rhythm straight away, and I slid into a barrier just a few corners before the finish line. It took me some time to manoeuvre the car back onto the stage and a few cars passed us in the process, so we've dropped several places overall."

"It's a shame, but by no means a catastrophe," observed Repsol Mitsubishi Ralliart Team Director Dominique Serieys (France). "It's obviously never nice to drop time, but the running order of Stéphane and Jean-Paul on tomorrow's stage could actually give them an advantage for the big day they face. Although we would obviously like to mark the Racing Lancer's first outing with a win, the important thing for us this weekend is to learn as much as we can about the car on this sort of terrain and also validate certain aspects of the development work we have covered during the build-up to January's Dakar."

The French driver admits that he and his co-driver Jean-Paul were in two minds prior to the start of today's super-special whether it was preferable to go for a top time, or else take a safe approach to ensure they were not first on the road for Saturday's two long tests which make up the bulk of the Portuguese Baja's competitive distance. "This afternoon's incident means that the decision was taken for us," reflected Stéphane Peterhansel. "The route of this rally is secret, so we don't know what the conditions will be like exactly, but today's super-special didn't seem to cut up too much. Hopefully the same will apply tomorrow. Given the weather, at least dust won't be a problem."

The second leg of the three-day event is the longest of the weekend, with a total distance of 425.37km to cover, including two stages (140.00km and 258.98km) to the southwest and west of Portalegre respectively. Sunday's programme features a single 110.00km test before the official finish in Nerpor/Portalegre at the end of the morning.

OVERALL CLASSIFICATION
Pos	Driver Co-Driver	Nat	Vehicle	Cls	Total Time	Diff Leader
1	Boris Gadasin Vladimir Demyanenko	RUS RUS	NISSAN OVERDRIVE	T1	5:57.4	**:**:**.*
2	Pedro Gameiro Manuel Dominguez	P P	NISSAN NAVARA	T1	6:01.1	0:03.7
3	Ricardo Leal dos Santos Joao Luz	P P	BMW X5	T1	6:01.6	0:04.2
4	Filipe Campos Jaime Baptista	P P	BMW X3	T1	6:04.0	0:06.6
5	Miroslav Zapletal Tomas Ourednicek	CZ CZ	MITSUBISHI L200	T1	6:04.1	0:06.7
6	Joao Ramos Jesus Vitor	P P	TOYOTA RAV 4	T1	6:04.3	0:06.9
7	Stephane Peterhansel Jean-Paul Cottret	F F	MITSUBISHI RACING LANCER	T1	6:06.3	0:08.9
8	Tonnie Van Deijne Wouter Van Deijne	CZ CZ	MITSUBISHI L200 EVO	T1	6:06.3	0:08.9