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Baja Aragon 2023: Laia Sanz in the Baja España Aragon
- The KH-7 driver has demonstrated great adaptability and has taken the lightweight prototype of the Wevers Sport team to fifth place in the first stage.
- The Catalan and her co-pilot Maurizio Gerini have fought for the Top 3, but dust problems and a power failure have made them lose a valuable time.
- “I felt very well. We have to see the positive side; the result is good, but I think it could have been much better. It’s a pity that we slept a pelin in the prologue.”
Laia Sanz has started with good feet her first participation in the Aragon Basse Spain on four wheels. In the competitive T3 category (light prototypes), the KH-7 driver has left evidence of his great pace and finished in a fifth position that he has known little by little, after being fighting until close to the end for a place in the Top 3, which has escaped him for problems with dust.
She summarizes her experience with Catalan: “I felt very well. We have to see the positive side; the result is good, but I think it could have been much better. It is a pity that we fell asleep in the prologue for being too cautious and a little too for lack of adaptation in the car. Then we started pushing and at the beginning of the special we were already much better, until with the dust it has been impossible for us to keep our pace. The positive part is that we have the pace of those ahead and tomorrow, if we don’t have dust, I think we can have a good day.”
The Spanish has started tempting the ground in the 5 km prologue that has served to establish the order of departure, and from which it has been 13th, 17 seconds from the first. Flanked by his Italian co-pilot Maurizio Gerini, she has accused in those initial compasses the lack of shooting with the side-by-side MCE-5 of the Wevers Sport team and the differences between this and the 4x4 electric with which she competes in the Extreme E.
“This car weighs half as much as the Extreme E, and at the beginning of the long special and in the prologue I didn’t calculate the brakes very well. Being such a light car, it allows you to squeeze a lot and brake very late, something I have been adapting with the passing of the kilometers”, recognizes Corbera de Llobregat.
In the special long, 180 kilometers between Bañón and Cuevas Labradas (Teruel), as it has been finding comfortable with the vehicle, it has begun to improve its records and has established partial that allowed it to aspire to a possible podium of stage. But in the final part of the tour, it has been hindered by dust and has lost valuable time, which has been aggravated by the fact of rotating half-stage with 20% less power than normal for a failure. In the end, he was fifth of T3 to 4 minutes and 53 seconds from the leader.
“I am pleased with the pace we have taken. I didn’t expect to fight with the first three, with the amount of dust there was. I think it is very positive, although it is a pity the problem that has taken us some power at the end. Even so, the car has gone very well, we felt super comfortable and with a lot of desire to fight more tomorrow,” he said.
On Saturday, the last two sections of the Aragon 2023, with a total of 327 kilometers timed, will be played.
Automatic translation from the original Spanish version sent to us by:
Source KH-7 Laia Sanz / Mediagé Comunicación
Helder