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Baja TT Norte de Portugal 2023: Tiago Reis/Valter Cardoso wins the Baja TT North of Portugal.
Tiago Reis and Valter Cardoso could not have desired a better result for the Baja TT North of Portugal, as they managed to win the race against an increasingly strong competition. "Today we came in very focused and aimed at winning. We are very pleased. We make a very positive assessment. These are important points for the championship," the driver said at the end of the race.
But despite the spectacular result of the Toyota T1+ duo, the great heroes of the Portuguese race were even the driver João Dias and his navigator João Miranda, who in the middle of the test were ahead, and ended up losing the race for only 1m44s, which gives a good account of the speed and level of performance that this team managed to extract from the "small" Can-Am registered in the category T3, which also won.
In third place ended the duo João Ramos and Pedro Ré who had a slightly troubled test. It started badly in the prologue, where the width of his Toyota T1+ made him fear some contact on the walls that flanked the track. It turned out to be slower than usual and ended in 12th place. On the second day, starting from behind, I suffered a lot with the dust, and still had to stop to help another competitor. It would have been the virtual leader at the end of the first day, but the organization amputated part of the track due to a failure in the driver tracking system, and with this, the effort of João Ramos to recover time was watered down, finishing third. In the end, the conditions of the test did not allow him to recover from the damage and he ended the race third.
Behind João Ramos were three SSVs running in the T3 category, in fourth, fifth, and sixth, all Can-Am models. Alexandre Pinto was the fourth, Marco Cardoso was the fifth, and Armindo Araujo was the sixth. A few years ago, this situation would have been unthinkable, especially in a super competitive championship like the Portuguese, but the incredible evolution of the SSVs that have gradually been getting involved in the middle of the cars, allied with a track with zones that favored them, dictated that these vehicles enter the race with the desire to win, and with the auto teams with few arguments to counter them.
In the T2 category, Fernando Barreiros and Paulo Torres confirmed the favoritism, triumphing with some ease in a category that has not seen much participation. This is the first time that we’ve been able to know what we’re going to do. (BRP-Can Am Maverick X3).
Finally, in the T8 category, Nuno Matos won with the Opel Mokka Proto, which, despite having already been around for a few years, demonstrated that they still have a lot of competitiveness and a lot to give. Nuno Matos finished in 10th place.
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