The Spanish Cross-Country Rally Championship reached its third round of the year with a new edition of the Rally TT Villa de Zuera, an event that is consolidated in the Spanish calendar and that sought a different format from the rest of the events, taking place entirely on Friday and Saturday.
The small town of Zuera, very close to the regional capital Zaragoza, welcomed again all the CERTT teams that found a perfect place for the dispute a cross-country rally, as the organization with good criteria, made a super special that repeated three times achieving a total of 357 kilometers "against the clock".
Santiago Carnicer and Miguel Angel Lazaro began achieving the best time in the prologue held on Friday in the car category with Macias-Conde in the second position and Pita-Herrero in the third.
The first "real" special stage, raced on Saturday Luis Recuenco and Sergio Peinado were the fastest with their MINI, which placed them as new leaders of the race. In the second position in the super special stage and in the general classification of the race were the current champions, Javier Pita and Ana Herrero, leaving Carnicer-Lázaro in the third position in the general classification. Jordi Gaig and Aleix Astudillo set the third-best time of the section and entered the fight for the final podium.
Carnicer / Lázaro were the fastest of the SS3 and climbed to second place overall behind Recuenco-Peinado who continued to set the pace with his second position in the section. Gaig / Astudillo were third of the special, but a penalty of ten minutes kept them away from the fight for the podium that remained between Pita-Herrero and the current leaders of the competition, Felix Macias and Jose Luis Conde who were fourth in the timed section.
The excitement was served in the last special stage, and despite a new top finish from Carnicer/Lázaro, the duo from Castellón-Murcia were penalized with ten minutes and were relegated to the third final position. Therefore, Luis Recuenco from Cuenca, who was driving the MINI and with Sergio Peinado as co-driver, got his first victory of the season. The final podium was completed by Javier Pita and Ana Herrero who were second in a race in which the regularity shown has paid off.
In the Side-by-Side (SSV) competition, David Asensio and José Manuel Mata were the fastest in the prologue with three seconds ahead of Dani Solá and David Moreno, who were debuting the Demon Car Buggy, a new vehicle from the Catalan manufacturer that they hope to consolidate in the coming events with the help of the Junior World Rally Champion. Lopez-Correas were the third fastest of this special that would mark the starting order on Saturday.
Themis Lopez and Ruben Correas achieved the best time in the first pass through the long section of the test, which placed them leaders with an advantage of almost two minutes over the second classified, Asensio-Mata. The third-fastest time was for Mogni/Aguado, who occupied the same position overall.
The current leaders of the championship, Víctor Verdú, and Alfonso de Miguel, got the best time in the SS3, placing less than six minutes from the leadership -despite a penalty of five minutes- which remained for López-Correas, second in this SS3. Federico Mogni and David Aguado continued with their comeback and were already very close to the third position, which was in the hands of Asensio-Mata.
Verdú/De Miguel were again the fastest in SS4 but could not snatch the final victory from Themis López and Rubén Correas, who took their first win of the season. The current leaders of the championship were second, closing the final podium Federico Mogni and David Aguado.
The Yamaha YXZ 1000R Cup was won by the Caamaño brothers ahead of Alarcón-Pérez and Iborra-Blanco, second and third respectively.
In the Spanish Championship of All-Terrain Regularity, the victory went to Salvador José Albiñana and Marcos Domingo, with Salvador Rubén Serrano and Juan Miguel Amaya second and Salvador Moral and Carlos Ruiz in third place.
In the different categories, Martínez-Martínez won in T8, Román-Sánchez in Open, Queralt-Solá in T4, Rubio-Benedicto in T3, Grilo-Duarte in T2, Villanueva-Aguado in T1N and Recuenco-Peinado in T1.
A pity the abandonment of Avatel's Ecopower, the first electric all-terrain vehicle of our competition, which continues its development in a firm commitment of Avatel Telecom for alternative energies.
