The rally in Portugal is drawing to a close, but the tension for the racers is only increasing. Athletes of the CFMOTO Thunder Racing Team in the quad category covered more than five hundred kilometers on Saturday, of which as many as 253 were the special stage. And all these kilometers, the racers said after finishing, were extremely tense because of the situation in the results table.
The Argentinian M. Andujar, who had been in the leading position until today, dropped out of the competition on Saturday, so Antanas Kanopkinas and Gaetan Martinez rose to the second and third places in the quad classification.
"A war of nerves, not a special stage. The differences between second and fourth place are very small, so all day I fought for every centimeter on the track. As a result, a small accident occurred - I rolled over a little. There was no major crime, I continued the competition after 15-20 seconds. For the rest of the day, I tried to make up for the lost time, so I overslipped more than one corner," told A. Kanopkinas and said that now, after the leader of the competition had fallen, all that is left was to successfully overcome the rest of Sunday's special stage and not get into a race with his teammate.
By the way, the time of A. Kanopkinas and G. Martinez after four days of the rally is identical, and both of them are only 2 minutes and 28 seconds behind the leader.
"Today everything went fine - the track was very fast and slippery. At one point I missed a turn and fell into deep ruts. I didn't break anything, it just took a while to get back on track. I met Andujar, the leader of the race, who had rolled over on the track, I helped him turn the quad back on the wheels, but due to technical problems he could no longer continue the rally", told G. Martinez and said that it was too early to relax, but at the same time he was happy that he managed to successfully complete the two marathon days.
The participants of the third round of the World Rally Raid Championship taking place in Portugal on Sunday will have to overcome a little more than a hundred kilometers on the track - they will decide who will be on the winner's podium.