After 513km of special stages that were held in scorching heat over two days on the rural tracks of Aragón, Tosha Schareina (Honda) once again won ahead of his compatriot Lorenzo Santolino and third-placed Rui Gonçalves, both of whom were riding Shercos.
In the quad category, Juraj Varga was the fastest and stole victory from Kevin Giroud when his rival lost around eight minutes on the final stage.
Normally, Baja Spain Aragón takes place over three days but general elections being organised in Spain on Sunday forced officials to compress the course into Friday and Saturday.
The Prologue, therefore, began the festivities at dawn on Friday but, despite this very early hour for the Iberians (06.00hrs), the public attended in numbers. Encouraged by the support of spectators and knowing the format of the Baja, which is run on very dry ground, Tosha Schareina won the opening six-kilometre Prologue and that enabled him to have an open and dust-free track to start the first special.
For his part, in SS1, Lorenzo Santolino was in good form and led until the service. But the Sherco rider struggled to find the traction necessary to maintain his position.
After the opening day’s 180km of competition, the motorcycle tyres were destroyed and this persuaded members of the FIM jury to exceptionally grant riders authorisation to change tyres between the two selective sections on Saturday.
Schareina continued his progress towards victory and he edged Santolino by 10 minutes, while Gonçalves finished third – a repeat of last year’s podium with the exception that the winner rode a KTM 450 to success in 2022. Neels Theric finished fourth followed by David Megre, who took a five-penalty for losing his time card. Spain was not a successful hunting ground for pre-event championship leader Mohammed Al-Balooshi, who prefers the desert and found himself in 10th place.
In quads, Juraj Varga finished in front of first Junior Kevin Giroud and leading Veteran Toni Vingut. On the Women's side, Sara Garcia claimed the laurels ahead of Alona Ben-Natan and Sarah Khuraibet, who received a hefty 42-minute penalty.
All results on SPORTITY code BAJAARAGON23_BIKES
Source: FIM
Photos: RallyZone
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