Jordan Baja 2024: Eduard Pons hopes to take a definitive step towards the title in the Jordan Baja
- The driver from Lleida, co-driven by Jaume Betriu, faces the penultimate round of the FIA Lowland World Cup season as leader of the Challenger category.
- The Pons Rallysport team arrives with the maximum confidence to a race that has had to change its route at the last minute due to the war in the Middle East.
- “It will be a complex race and we will be competing in a new area of the Wadi Rum desert, which will undoubtedly be a great challenge considering the small gap we have at the top of the championship.”
Just twelve days after the previous race, Eduard Pons returns to action this weekend to compete in the Baja Jordan, the penultimate round of the FIA World Cup season. The driver from Lleida arrives to this new challenge as leader of the Challenger category, seven points ahead of his main rival in the fight for the world title, Khalid Aljafla.
After finishing fourth in Qatar in his debut with the Nasser Racing structure, Pons, who will again be co-driven by Jaume Betriu, faces with optimism a completely different event and that in recent weeks has been in suspense due to the armed conflict that shakes the Middle East region. Faced with this delicate situation, the organizers of the Baja Jordan have been forced to modify their itinerary to hold the race in an area further away from the border with Israel.
“We don't know what to expect from the special stages. The change of location gives more uncertainty to what we will encounter. It will be a complex event and we will be competing in a new area of the Wadi Rum desert, which will undoubtedly be a great challenge considering the small gap we have at the top of the championship”, explains the driver from Lleida.
With a seven-point margin over Aljafla, Pons is very clear about his starting strategy. “We have to be conservative. We will go from less to more, from behind, watching what our rival does, since he will have the pressure of having to cut points from us, and a mistake can leave him without options to the title. The race will undoubtedly be difficult to manage”.
The feared desert of Wadi Rum, known worldwide for its impressive canyons, will be the scene of this battle to the limit in which orientation and navigation will again be key in the outcome of the race. “Jaume will have an essential job to make the most of the long stages we will have to face this weekend. We believe that, on the first day of competition, with more than 300 kilometers of special stage, big differences can be made, and we will try to do a good result in the prologue to be able to choose a delayed starting position and have traces on the tracks, which always helps,” confesses Eduard Pons.
In addition to the three-kilometer prologue to be held on Thursday and the two selective sections on Friday of 200 and 133 km, respectively, there will be another 185 km of special stage on Saturday, which will put an end to a Baja Jordan that is expected to be very tough.
Precisely, the preparations for the Jordanian appointment have been intense for the interests of the Catalans, because after finishing the last Baja International Qatar with mechanical problems in his car, the Nasser Racing team, at its base in Doha, changed the damaged engine for a new propellant to face the last two races of the year.
“The Taurus T3 Max was overhauled from top to bottom for the Baja Jordan, electronic parts of the vehicle were also changed, and a major tune-up was done so that the car can give the best possible performance this weekend,” adds Eduard Pons satisfied with the work done by the mechanics and engineers of Nasser Racing.
Facing one of the most decisive races of its sporting career, the Pons Rallysport team arrives in Jordan with maximum confidence, with the clear objective of taking a new and important step towards the title of the Challenger category of the FIA Lowland World Cup.
Automatic translation of the Spanish version
Source: Pons Rallysport / Mediagé Comunicación
