Rally dos Sertões 2023: Varela family goes in search of a second victory

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• Varela family  tries to repeat 2022 in the Sertões Rally
• With their SSVs among the favorites, the team fights for a good result in the main race of the 2023 season.

The team Varela Can-Am Monster Energy is in Petrolina, in the state of Pernambuco, 714 km from the capital Recife, for the competition of the 31st BRB Sertões Rally. The team, which last year won the event with driver Rodrigo Varela and navigator Matheus Mazzei, tries to repeat the feat. To this end, he enrolled four UTVs, all manned by experienced and competitive doubles.

In addition to Rodrigo and Mazzei, the team has the two-time winner of the Sertões (2000 and 2015) in cars, Reinaldo Varela with the navigator Aristóteles Fiuza; the winner of the category UTVs in 2017, Bruno Varela, alongside Gustavo Bortolanza; and Gabriel Varella with his new navigator, Ênio Bozzano.
The current champion of the Sertões, Rodrigo Varela, paid attention to the fact that, despite the race being shorter this year, navigation remains the main issue. "Navigation will be quite difficult. At least this is the orientation we have, since the script is only revealed every day of the test", explained the current champion among the UTVs. "And we will have to be very careful on the slopes during the whole race, because there will be a lot of stones, of all sizes, even large rocks," he warned.

World triple champion Reinaldo Varela predicts that one of the team’s greatest achievements will be the technical side, after improvements made in the Can-Am Maverick X3 models. "After a great preparation, we finally arrived at Sertões and we feel that our UTV is holding for the challenges that we will face, mainly because of the developments that we saw in the last events that we participated in", he assessed. "But, of course, it is always a very complicated test. Being calm so as not to damage the equipment will be essential", he pondered.

Enthusiasm – Winner in 2017, Bruno Varela sees the team’s enthusiasm in the main challenge of the Brazilian rally as "motivation to accelerate more". "It is always cool to get to the Sertões, I helped to assemble our structure, and now really beat that anxiety," he confessed. "We have a very strong team, and our expectation is to fight for good results. We arrived as the current team champion, but it will be difficult, starting right from the first special that has 370 km. It's going to be well pulled. Then we have the third and fourth, which together form the marathon. But every step deserves attention. Defeating the Sertões requires a lot of commitment."

Gabriel Varela bets on his perseverance to leave Sertões with a good result. "It is always important that we have everything at 100% for this race, which is the most anticipated and most desirable of the year. But attention to detail and focus on keeping a steady pace are what can make a difference in Sertões. As curious as it may seem to those who do not compete in high-performance rallies, our goal is to try not to hit anything, walking as fast as possible. That, I would say, is our homework here for our team", said Gabriel Varela.

The 2023 Sertons Rally is scheduled to begin this Friday, August 11th, with the prologue and Super Prime. The event will have eight stages, no day off, and go through three states. This year's marathon stage, in which competitors cannot use mechanical support and need to do the repairs in their own vehicles, will be going back and forth between Petrolina and Xique-Xique, in Bahia. 

Automatic translation from the original Brazillian-Portuguese version available on www.todoterreno.pt
Source:  Best PR / Team Varela Can-Am Monster Energy

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