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Sertões 2024: Moraes/Bentivoglio duo win first part of Sertões marathon stage and retake overall lead
Info: Automatic translation of the Brazilian Portuguese version
Along the way, the competitors even stopped to help an opponent who had overturned
Tuesday (27), which marked the opening of the marathon stage of the 32nd edition of the Sertões Rally, was considered calm by the duo Lucas Moraes and Kaíque Bentivoglio. The duo, who are on board the Toyota GR DKR Hilux #323, won the special of the day, held in Luís Eduardo Magalhães, Bahia, and once again topped the overall standings in the Cars category.
The route of the first “leg” of the marathon, which takes its name precisely because it restricts the time for adjustments to the cars, was 263 km timed for the category, which had a different schedule from Motorcycles and UTVS. Lucas and Kaíque started in second place, just behind Adroaldo Weisheimer and Beco Andreotti.
Quiet day and scare with opponents - The #323 duo had a quiet day on the special, passing through marshes, farms and stretches of footpaths. Still in the first section, Lucas and Kaíque had a scare when the leading duo Weisheimer/Andreotti overturned. Concerned for their opponents' safety, they stopped to help. Driver and navigator are fine.
“The special was very clean for us, we were closing the gap to Adroaldo and Beco, we had about 20 seconds on them and suddenly they made a turn and overturned in front of us. It was a frightening scene, very bad to see. We stopped, Kaíque went down to check that everything was OK and thank God they were. Marathons are always very treacherous and today was very fast, with corners at 160 km/h,” commented Lucas, who is an official Toyota Gazoo Racing driver and competes with the support of Red Bull, Strava, Repsol, Oakley, Zapalla, Reserva and SpeedMax (PneuStore).
Lucas and Kaíque won the special with a time of 2h16min48s96. Second place went to Marcelo Gastaldi/Cadu Sachs, 1min38s72 behind. The top three was rounded off by Lucas' father, Marcos Moraes and navigator Fábio Pedroso. They clocked 2h19min47s35.
In the overall standings, Lucas/Kaíque were one of the pairs to receive a time reduction. Therefore, with Tuesday's victory, they are in the lead with 9h59min58s83. Gastaldi/Sachs are in second place with a gap of 8min48s07. Marcos/Pedroso are in third place with 11min17s14.
Tomorrow the cars face the second part of the marathon, which will take in 418 timed kilometers, still in Luís Eduardo Magalhães. The cars can only be prepared for 90 minutes by the drivers and navigators, without outside help. The Sertões Rally continues until August 31, with its final destination in Brasília (DF). More photos of the Lucas Moraes/Kaíque Bentivoglio duo can be found at this link. For journalistic use only.
Top-5 of the 4th special stage, of a total of 8, Luís Eduardo Magalhães (BA) to Luís Eduardo Magalhães (BA), 263 km
1st Lucas Moraes / Kaíque Bentivoglio - Toyota Gazoo Racing MEM Motorsport, 2h16min48s96
2nd Marcelo Gastaldi / Cadu Sachs - Baja Tek, + 1min38s72
3rd Marcos Moraes / Fabio Pedroso - MEM Motorsport, + 2min58s39
4º Carlos Ambrosio / Luiz Afonso Poli - Baja Tek, + 5min50s84
5th Luiz Nacif / Erick Rocha - X-Rally Team, + 6min34s05
Automatic translation of the Brazilian Portuguese version
Source: BestPR
Photo: Red Bull Content Pool
Helder