Nani Roma scores 2nd place for Mitsubishi in Baja España 08

FIA INTERNATIONAL CUP FOR CROSS COUNTRY BAJAS
BAJA ESPANA ARAGON 08
20 JULY 2008
LEG 3

ROMA SECURES 2ND PLACE ON THE BAJA ESPANA FOR TEAM REPSOL MITSUBISHI RALLIART
Following his victory for Mitsubishi on the Baja Espana in 2005, and his runner-up finish behind team-mate Stéphane Peterhansel (France) this time last year, this weekend saw Nani Roma (Spain) complete his home event in the medals for the third time in three participations.

Along with his co-driver Lucas Cruz (Spain), the Team Repsol Mitsubishi Ralliart driver emerged as the biggest threat to early leader Nasser Al-Attiyah, and the Spanish pair did all they could to keep up the pressure all the way to the finish. They lost ground with two punctures on the first full day of competition (Friday), however, and were then hampered in their bid to strike back by hanging dust on Saturday morning. Despite his best efforts at the wheel of his petrol-powered Pajero/Montero Evolution MPR13, Roma was forced to recognise the performance advantage that the current regulations hand the diesel cars of his rivals. "It's a situation we just have to live with for the moment in the knowledge that everyone at MMSP and in Japan is working very hard to prepare for the future," he observed during the event.
Indeed, the Spaniard had been able to judge the potential of the new diesel engine that will spearhead Mitsubishi's challenge in the years ahead when he came close to winning May's Rali Transiberico in Portugal with the latest Pajero/Montero Evolution MPR14. Meanwhile, Mitsubishi Motors Corporation recently revealed the exciting new diesel-powered Mitsubishi Racing Lancer MRX09 which is due to take over soon from the exceptionally successful Pajero/Montero.

The latest 3 liter V6 powerplant is currently under intensive development, and Hiroshi Masuoka/Pascal Maimon (Japan/France) provided a glimpse of its speed with a second fastest time on the first day of the 25th anniversary Baja Espana. Unfortunately, the Japanese driver's challenge came to an end on the following leg when his MPR14 was consumed by flames. Masuoka was trying to get back onto the stage after an off on Saturday afternoon when the hot brakes of another car that had left the road at the same place set fire to the surrounding grass. Both machines were destroyed in the ensuing blaze.

Happily, nobody was hurt but the incident occurred just minutes after the team had received news that Luc Alphand/Gilles Picard (France) and their MPR13 were also stopped on the same stage, the longest of the weekend. The French driver had fallen sick shortly before the start of the event with a case of suspected food poisoning, but he succeeded in limiting the damage on Leg 1. He figured in the top-three behind Roma for much of the day but was squeezed off the podium near the finish of Friday's final stage after shattering his two left-hand side wheels against a rock. The next morning saw him bounce back to close to within less than a minute of third place but his run was ultimately halted by a transmission problem on Saturday afternoon.

"It's been a very tough event and a difficult weekend for all the team," declared Team Repsol Mitsubishi Ralliart Director Dominique Serieys. "We did our absolute best, but we faced several problems which prevented us from showing our true potential in terms of outright performance. All three crews lost time with punctures resulting from impacts with rocks on Leg 1. They suffered again in Saturday morning's hanging dust, and then we had Hiroshi's fire on Saturday afternoon� Nani kept up the fight all the way and he did well to finish second overall, but it is important that we take the lessons this rally has taught us onboard for the future."

"We unfortunately lost the Pajero/Montero Evolution MPR14 which was destroyed in Saturday's fire," said Osamu Nakayama the President of MMSP SAS. "That is obviously very disappointing, but this car carried out a very important mission for us as we developed our new V6 diesel engine. It covered more than 8,000km in testing and competition and this work was key to preparing the foundations for the development of the Mitsubishi Racing Lancer MRX09. A page has turned, but I am pleased to confirm that the new car is already at a very advanced stage. We will now focus our energy on making it as competitive as possible in the time we have available before the 2009 Dakar."

The 2008 Baja Espana was marked by glorious sunshine from start to finish, with temperatures peaking in the mid-30s (deg C) on all three days. The final leg's 126.74km stage (SS6) took competitors through high ground to the south of Zaragoza, via a route which passed constantly from one valley to another over passes situated at altitudes of up to 600 metres. The lower-lying land took crews through freshly harvested hayfields, while the scenery was dotted in many places with wind-farms and solar panels. Nani Roma profited from SS6 to claim his first fastest time of the weekend, but he was fully aware that only a problem for the leader would permit him to finish any higher than second. "It was too easy for All-Attiyah to control from in front today," he recognised. "I suppose second overall is better than not finishing at all, but we are a team that competes to win, so the way this year's Baja Espana unfolded was particularly frustrating; especially when you see all the effort and risks you take to gain time over the twisty sections wasted as soon as the terrain gets faster. But OK, we've got lots of encouraging developments coming up for the future and, despite my natural disappointment today, that is a very exciting prospect."

Team Repsol Mitsubishi Ralliart's competitive programme will continue with an entry on the inaugural Pax Rally which takes place in Portugal on September 9-14. The second fixture of the newly-created Dakar Series will feature similar terrain to last May's Rali Transiberico (won by Mitsubishi's Luc Alphand and Gilles Picard) but will not include any action in Spain.

Bruno Saby retires from International Rallying

PRESS INFORMATION
Friday, July 18th, 2008
FRENCHMAN BRUNO SABY RETIRES FROM INTERNATIONAL RALLYING

X-raid’s Nasser Al-Attiyah takes comfortable lead in Baja Spain

ZARAGOZA (Spain): Frenchman Bruno Saby has taken the decision to retire from
international rallying during the second day of the Baja Spain Aragon, round three of the 2008 FIA International Cup for Cross-Country Bajas.

The Grenoble driver was lying sixth overall with the AlgoDyne Green Power Racing Team after the first selective section of the Baja Spain Aragon, but took the decision to quit before the second longer selective section on Friday.

Qatar’s Nasser Saleh Al-Attiyah and Swedish co-driver Tina Thorner held a comfortable overall lead after the first day in their X-raid BMW X3CC. The pair were fastest on both the selective sections and headed into the overnight halt with a 4m 46s lead over Spaniard Joan Roma.

X-raid Portugal’s Filipe Campos held third position and X-raid Russia’s Leonid Novitskiy was eighth overall.

“I was not sure of the pace at the start of the first stage because I was running first on the road and I lost around 40 seconds in the first 50km,” admitted Al-Attiyah. “But then I speeded up and found a good safe pace. I quickly moved ahead of the Mitsubishis and have a good lead. The plan now is to push hard on Saturday and try and extend the lead without making any mistakes.”

Saby’s sudden decision to retire from international motor sport brings down the curtain on a career that has spanned over 40 years and seen him win rallies in various disciplines at the highest level.

Saby, 59, won the Dakar Rally with co-driver Dominique Serieys in 1993 and was a former factory driver for the Lancia Abarth and Peugeot Talbot Sport teams in the FIA World Rally Championship.

He replaced the late Colin McRae in the X-raid team before the 2007 UAE Desert Challenge and was a former driver for Team Mitsubishi Ralliart and Volkswagen Motorsport, winning the 2005 Patagonia-Atacama Rally and the FIA World Cup for Cross-Country Rallies with the German team.

Saby entered the first of his 39 WRC rallies in 1973 and took his maiden victory in Corsica during the halcyon days of the FISA Group B category in 1986. He also won the 1988 Monte Carlo Rally, before switching to the exciting discipline of Cross-Country rallying after the 1991 Lombard RAC Rally.

THREE-CAR ENTRY FROM TEAM REPSOL MITSUBISHI RALLIART FOR THE BAJA ESPANA

FIA INTERNATIONAL CUP FOR CROSS COUNTRY BAJAS
BAJA ESPANA ARAGON 08
10 JULY 2008
PREVIEW

THREE-CAR ENTRY FROM TEAM REPSOL MITSUBISHI RALLIART FOR THE BAJA ESPANA

Following the victory of Luc Alphand and Gilles Picard (France) with the petrol-powered Pajero/Montero Evolution MPR13 on May's Rali Transiberico, Team Repsol Mitsubishi Ralliart continues its 2008 cross-country program with a three-car line-up for the Baja Espana, round three of the 2008 FIA International Cup for Cross Country Bajas.

Mitsubishi Motors Corporation (MMC) and its motorsport unit MMSP have entered Pajero/Montero Evolution MPR13s for Luc Alphand/Gilles Picard and Joan 'Nani' Roma/Lucas Cruz (Spain), while Hiroshi Masuoka and Pascal Maimon (Japan/France) make their return to the competitive scene with the latest diesel-engined MPR14.

Team Repsol Mitsubishi Ralliart travels to Spain with the objective of repeating its one-two finishes on the Baja Espana in 2005 and 2007, although Team Director Dominique Serieys (France) is expecting some stiff opposition. "This event is the third of the program we announced at the beginning of the year," he explains. "We go to Zaragoza with two main objectives. The first is to keep our drivers and co-drivers match fit in readiness for the challenge of the 2009 Dakar which awaits them in South America next January. Indeed, the Baja Espana stages are fairly representative of the terrain they can expect in Argentina in six months' time. Our other aim is to continue the development of the diesel-engined Mitsubishi Pajero/Montero Evolution MPR14 which showed significant promise on the recent Rali Transiberico. It claimed three stage wins in the hands of Nani Roma and has just returned from an encouraging test in southern Spain and Morocco where we were able to validate several solutions aimed at enhancing its endurance and speed. As was the case on the Central Europe Rally, it will be driven by Hiroshi Masuoka whose co-driver Pascal Maimon has fully recovered from the fractured ankle he sustained in Romania. Nani and Luc will spearhead our bid to win the Baja Espana with the MPR13 for the third time in four years, but success for the diesel car is by no means out of the question. There will be a strong field, though, and we will need to hit the ground running."

Hiroshi Masuoka has every intention of doing his best to repeat Roma's leading performance at Transiberico. The Japanese driver is particularly upbeat following the team's recent test work with the new car, but acknowledges that he lacks recent experience of the Baja Espana. "I last contested this event some 15 years ago," he confirms, "and it was a very different event back then. However, I'm delighted to say that Pascal Maimon is now 100 per cent fit again after a final operation to the ankle he fractured on the Central Europe Rally in April. On top of that, we've just come back from a very positive 3,000km test which has taken the diesel-engined MPR14 a further step forward. It has improved enormously since the CER - especially the engine cooling system - and should be even more powerful and reliable. It would be fantastic if I could give it its first win..."

Nani Roma came close to depriving his Japanese team-mate of that honour when he emerged on top of the provisional leaderboard on the recent Transiberico before losing ground on the penultimate day. For his home event, the Spaniard will be back behind the wheel of the familiar petrol-powered Pajero/Montero Evolution. "The plan was always for me to drive the MPR13 on the Baja Espana," he says. "I was fortunate enough, however, to try the MPR14 at Transiberico. I quickly got a feel for the driving style it required and I was proud to become the first person to post a fastest time with it. The pace of the Baja is faster than that of the Transiberico, but I think the MPR14 is capable of another top performance. That obviously won't stop me trying to win with the petrol-engined car, although it won't be easy because there's a strong entry, including Luc Alphand of course. It's an event I know well, though: I won it four times on two wheels and then once, in 2005, with Mitsubishi. It's also very close to my home, so I am hoping for a good run again this year."

Like Roma, Luc Alphand has seen the Baja Espana evolve from the days when it used to be a 900km uninterrupted dash to today's more conventional format. "For sure, the Baja Espana has changed, and I have some fond recollections of my early visits to this event," says the Frenchman who won outright in 2003. "But motor sport is changing all the time and cross-country rallying is no exception. For example, the pace of the two events we have contested so far this year - namely the CER and the Transiberico, which I won - is much quicker than in 2007. Today's Baja Espana shares a certain number of similarities with the Transiberico, although the stages in the Zaragoza region tend to be faster on the whole. The weather is generally much hotter and drier, too, and the dusty surface of those portions that are repeated can often turn into a sort of fesh-fesh sand which is quite a challenge. I'm expecting another very close fight, but our sights are set on victory..."

The four-day, Zaragoza-based baja, which this year celebrates its 25th anniversary, has traded Madrid as start venue on July 17th for the small town of Alcaniz, situated a little more than 100km to the southeast of the event's host city. Scrutineering and a short spectator stage (3.00km) will be held in Alcaniz before the event moves on to Zaragoza for three action-packed days divided into seven further stages, including two attempts at the 2.50km Colin McRae Memorial spectator stage.

The event ends in Zaragoza on the afternoon of Sunday July 20th after covering 1,493km for a total competitive distance of 880,40km. Two of the stages exceed 200km and the longest test of the weekend is Saturday's 235.30km SS4 (Longares/Alcaniz/Belchite).