Racing Lancer takes lead in the 2nd day of Baja Portalegre

FIA INTERNATIONAL CUP FOR CROSS COUNTRY BAJAS
BAJA PORTALEGRE 500
01 NOVEMBER 2008
LEG 2

NERPOR - NERPOR (Portugal):
Road section: 0.10km - Service (10 minutes) - Road section: 7.17km
SS2: 140.00km
Road section: 5.86km - Service (40 minutes) - Road section: 7.30km
SS3: 258.98km
Road section: 5.86km - Service (3 hours)
Total distance: 425.37km

TEAM REPSOL MITSUBISHI RALLIART'S NEW RACING LANCER TAKES CONTROL TO MARK ITS DEBUT IN PORTUGAL

The first full day of competition has seen Stéphane Peterhansel/Jean-Paul Cottret (France) power the Team Repsol Mitsubishi Ralliart Racing Lancer to the top of the Baja Portalegre 500's provisional leaderboard. The Mitsubishi pair lost a little ground on Friday's short super-special but profited from this morning's 140km stage to the southwest of Portalegre to take control of the fifth and final round of the 2008 FIA Cup for Cross-Country Bajas.

The new Racing Lancer, which is making its competition debut this weekend in Portugal, continued to revel in the cold, damp conditions on the day's second test (258.98km) to pull even further clear and take the French crew 4 minutes 10 seconds clear of their closest chasers with just 110km of competitive action remaining on Sunday morning.

"I pushed quite hard on the first stage, although I tried to keep my driving as smooth and tidy as possible, because the conditions were extremely treacherous and I didn't want to take any risks," reported Stéphane Peterhansel at service this evening. "We dropped a little ground after stopping to change a punctured tyre after 25km but we managed to recover that time to claim SS2 by 32 seconds. The Racing Lancer feels really competitive. You can sense all the torque pulling you out of the tighter corners and up the steeper climbs. I was very pleased with the front suspension, too; I found it to be very precise and efficient on this type of terrain. We kept to the same sort of rhythm on this afternoon's longer test because that was equally as tricky, with lots of water on the ground. The problem was that the conditions weren't predictable, so you had to be on the alert all the time just in case you came across a big puddle under braking, for instance"

"There was effectively plenty of standing water about," confirms Stéphane Peterhansel's co-driver Jean-Paul Cottret. "The conditions were very slippery and it could have been so easy to get caught out in certain places. But like Stéphane, I thoroughly enjoy the relatively fast stages in this region which is basically the same part of Portugal which hosted the Rali Transiberico and the PAX Rally earlier in the year. On top of that, the fact that we lost time on Friday afternoon meant that we had a low start order, and that actually turned out to be a good thing: there was absolutely no dust, of course, and the first cars through tended to cut through the slippery top film to expose a firmer base underneath, which meant we benefited from good grip."

Team Repsol Mitsubishi Ralliart Director Dominique Serieys praised his crew for their brighten performance over today's challenging terrain, but repeated that the team is here in Portugal with a view to adding kilometres on the new Racing Lancer's clock: "The weather conditions really weren't nice, especially early on, but Stéphane and Jean-Paul did a fine job to come through the day unscathed. They are professionals and know what is expected of them this weekend, which is essentially to fine-tune the final details of the new Racing Lancer's development before January's Dakar."

The programme of the last day of the 2008 Baja Portalegre 500 features a single 110km stage before the finish ceremony in Nerpor/Portalegre later in the morning. Following the poor weather that has marked the event so far, crews could well be greeted by a little sunshine as they set off for the final leg early on Sunday morning.

OVERALL CLASSIFICATION AFTER LEG 2
Pos	Driver Co-Driver	Nat	Vehicle	Cat	Total Time	Diff Leader
1	Stephane Peterhansel Jean-Paul Cottret	F F	MITSUBISHI RACING LANCER	T1.2	4:47:33	**:**:**.*
2	Filipe Campos Jaime Baptista	P P	BMW X3	T1.2	4:51:45	4:12
3	Miguel Barbosa Luis Ramalho	P P	BMW X3	T1.2	4:57:33	10:00
4	Pedro Grancha Paulo Primaz	P P	NISSAN NAVARA OFF ROAD	T1.1	4:59:44	12:11
5	Tonnie Van Deijne Wouter Van Deijne	CZ CZ	MITSUBISHI L200 EVO	T1.1	5:04:03	16:30
6	Ricardo Leal dos Santos Joao Luz	P P	BMW X5	T1.2	5:10:08	22:35
7	Miroslav Zapletal Tomas Ourednicek	CZ NL	MITSUBISHI L200	T1.1	5:12:25	24:52
8	Joao Ramos Jesus Vitor	P P	TOYOTA RAV 4	T1.2	5:16:30	28:57