Stage 3 on the Africa Eco Race

Tagounite - Icht

This third stage of the 2017 AFRICA ECO RACE was one of the longest of this edition with all the difficulties one can encounter on the African Cross-Country Rallies.

Above all, it featured the first real dune portions and featured the same winners as the first day with Gev SELLA in the bikes category, Vladimir VASILYEV in Auto category and Andrey KARGINOV in the Truck category.

SELLA BEATS CECI

Gev SELLA, the 18 year old rider on his first great offroad Rally, beat his opponents on a selective sector, including Pal Anders ULLEVASETER, the two time winner of the event

'I am 50 years old but today, with what this kid just realized, I felt 20 years more. I had no particular problems and he beat me by 20 minutes. It is incredible because I see his marks and on the jumps and I have to admit he goes further than I can. His trajectories are clean and he makes no mistakes in terms of navigation and it will be hard to fight with him. "

Harite GABARI is increasingly comfortable as the Rally heads to the south from where he is originally from. A big disappointment today for Paolo CECI whose HONDA Africa Twin faced fuel problems in the dunes and he was forced to come lose rhythm on the end of the special stage to save the bib foam of his rear tyre. As a results he lost 50 minutes to take 4th place of the day. In 5th was Russian Dmitry AGOSHKOV, a regular since the start.

Overall, Gev SELLA took the command of the operation with a comfortable lead since he is in front of Paolo CECI by 51.05 while Pal Anders ULLELVASETER is 3rd at now 1:23.28. In other words, the Norwegian has no more margin for error. A word on the only quad of the race. After suffering a fuel failure, Aleksandr MAKSIMOV finished 18th today but is in 12th position overall for the moment.

VASILEV IS NOT HOLDING BACK

After a third victory in three days, Vladimir VASILYEV showed once again that he is here to win and nothing else. The stage was in fact better suited for buggies. Thierry MAGNALDI tried his hardest to keep in touch with the Russian. He was so close that he finished the stage in second position with his 2WD Buggy at only 3’16’’. Another outstanding performance camefrom the LCR30 Buggy driven by Patrick SIREYJOL who finishes only 5’49’’ from the leader. Pascal THOMASSE also managed a very good stage behind the wheel of his OPTIMUS Buggy and finished in 4th place 13’17’’ behind the leader of the stage and in front of the very impressive FORD Raptor driven by the Kazakh driver Andrey CHEREDNIKOV, who finishes with an overall gap of 27’32’’. After his problems yesterday, Mathieu SERRADORI got back into his rhythm and ends up 7th just behind Dominique HOUSIEUX who is still doing a good job. The big loser of the day wass Jean Antoine SABATIER who lost 2 places in the overall ranking and a total of 45’.

In the T2 category, the production car category, the current champion Marat ABYKAYEV finished first of the category ranking with his Toyota. In the overall rankings he is 25th and leading the category. This year on the AFICA ECO RACE we also have some T3 competitors with their SSV and so far Fédéric PITOUT is leading with his POLARIS putting him on the top step of the category and 28TH in the overall ranking and todays stage in the 28th.

THAT MAKES THREE FOR KARIGOV

In the truck category, Andrey KARGINOV in his KAMAZ leads the rest of the field, Andrey won his third stage in as many days and finishes 4th in the car/truck ranking. This has comforted his lead of the category and his 3rd place in the general ranking.

Andrey KARGINOV et Jean Antoine SABATIERBehind the rest the KAMAZ we find the two Tatras with a very close duel in between Jaroslav VALTR and Tomas TOMACEK. As we all know Tomas TOMACEK has already won the rally 3 times and he knows that while he is not currently leading, the rally is very long.

Thursday January 5, 2017 the rally is heading south, to go from ASSA to Remz El Quebir after a stage of 409km with no liaisons. This should be the best stage of this year from a driving point of view.

Rankings

BIKES

SS3

1 G. Sella (AFS/KTM) in 4h54.39 ; 2 P.A. Ullevalseter (Nor/KTM) at 21.07 ; 3 H. Gabari (Mar/KTM) at 36.41 ; 4 P. Ceci (Ita/Honda) at 52.54 ; 5 D. Agoshkov (Rus/KTM) at 1h01.01; 6 G. Martens (Hol/KTM) at 1h04.05 ; 7 M. Benko (SLQ /KTM) at 1h04.51 ; 8 S. Pelloni (Ita/Yamaha) at 1h06.47 ; 9 J. Zatko (Slo/KTM) at 1h11.29 ; 10 B. Young (Aus/KTM) at 1h18.20

Overall 1 G. Sella (AFS/KTM) en 10.53 ; 2 P. Ceci (Ita/Honda) at 51.51 ; 3 P.A. Ullevalseter (Nor/KTM) at 1h07.43 ; 4 H. Gabari (Mar/KTM) at 1h23.28 ; 5 D. Agoshkov (Rus/KTM) at 2h13.10 ; 6 M. Benko (SLQ /KTM) at 2h26.21 ; 7 J. Zatko (Slo/KTM) at 2h35.02 ; 8 S. Pelloni (Ita/Yamaha) at 2h36.14 ; 9 G. Martens (Hol/KTM) at 2h49.48 ; 10 H. Rahm (Sue/KTM) at 3h03.12

CARS / TRUCKS

SS3 1 V. Vasilyev - K. Zhiltsov (Rus/Mini) in 4h17.30 ; 2 T. Magnaldi - F.Borsotto (Fra/Buggy 2WD) at 3.16 ; 3 P. Sireyjol - FX. Beguin (Fra-Bel/Buggy LCR 30) at 5.49 ; 4 A. Karginov - A. Mokeev - D. Nikitin (Rus/Kamaz) at 10.47 ; 5 P. Thomasse - P. Larroque (Fra/Buggy Optimus) at 13.17 ; 6 A. Cherednikov - D. Tsyro (Kaz-Ukr/Ford) at 27.32 ; 7 D. Housieaux - C. Crespo (Fra/Buggy Optimus) at 31.41 ; 8 M.Serradori - F.Lurquin (Fra-Bel/Buggy SRT) at 31.59 ; 9 M. Zapletal - M. Sykora (SLQ/Hummer) at 34.33 ; 10 Y.Fromont - J. Fromont (Fra/Volkswagen) at 37.49

Overall 1 V. Vasilyev - K. Zhiltsov (Rus/Mini) in 9h06.04 ; 2 T. Magnaldi - F.Borsotto (Fra/Buggy 2WD) at 28.41 ; 3 A. Karginov - A. Mokeev - D. Nikitin (Rus/Kamaz) at 37.00 ; 4 P. Thomasse - P. Larroque (Fra/Buggy Optimus) at 49.05 ; 5 3 P. Sireyjol - FX. Beguin (Fra-Bel/Buggy LCR 30) at 1h13.03 ; 6 D. Housieaux - C. Crespo (Fra/Buggy Optimus) at 1h15.34 ; 7 A. Cherednikov - D. Tsyro (Kaz-Ukr/Ford) at 1h15.42 ; 8 J.A. Sabatier - A. Rizzardi (Fra-Ita/BuggaOne) at 1h24.32 ; 9 M. Zapletal - M. Sykora (SLQ/Hummer) at 1h34.32 ; 10 G. Gomez - L. Fagot (Fra/Buggy Optimus) at 1h39.00


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