The only Cross Country World Event held on Portuguese ground started yesterday. The 17th Baja Vodafone 1000, organized by Clube Aventura, started with an 11 km Prologue drawn in the vicinities of the city of Évora. The national Cross Country Champion, Miguel Barbosa, driving a Mitsubishi Strakar, was quickest, ahead of Luís Costa with the 2003 World Cup Winner, Carlos Sousa in third, making his debut in the Mitsubishi Pajero Evo.
At the end of this initial stage the drivers were generally happy with the results, however the worst is yet to come with everything at stake through the two hard stages to be held until Sunday.
Miguel Barbosa:
"The Prologue was quite fast, with a very interesting and well planed layout, but didn't allow to much risk because of some more dangerous points. We attacked all we could on the places we felt it was safe, always with some margin not to compromise the result and ended doing a good time".
On the other hand, Luís Costa admitted being "quite surprised with this result. I knew that I could gain some time in the beginning but by the end of stage, which was very fast, it would prove very hard to maintain some of my initial advantage. Everything went perfectly and after aiming for a spot amongst the top five, I can only feel glad for achieving this second place. I made a perfect Prologue!", assured the driver.
Carlos Sousa, still on a natural adaptation phase to a new car, revealed that "the car is great and I'm very pleased. Naturally, I have to work the car a bit more in order to adjust it and adjust myself, because the driving of the Pajero is a lot different from the L200. This is a car with for a much more Rally orientated behavior, with a very different balance from what I was used to with the Strakar; the Pajero "rolls" a lot more and that's the type of new situations to which I'm going to adjust rapidly, getting the absolutely best from a fabulous car", Sousa concluded with a smile on his face.
Rui Sousa who finished the first 11 kms in a positive 4th place, "a result within our expectations".
