After missing stage one due to safety concerns the Bikes finally made their bow in the eighth edition of the Africa Eco Race on Wednesday. Defending champion Pal Anders Ullevalseter laid down the marker winning stage two, which took the competitors from Jorf El Hamam to Tagounite in Morocco.
The KTM rider was followed by Italian Stefano Chiussi while rounding out the stage podium was Britain’s Andrew Newland.
Fourth fastest over the 313km timed special was Russian Dmitry Agoshkov.
Mathieu SERRADORI has found his grove in the car section. It did not take long for the French driver Mathieu SERRADORI to position his Buggy in front of all the rest of the field. With under 1’000km on the clock, this proto from MSR enabled his driver to set the best time of the leg.
An excellent performance which makes him stand out as one of the favorites, , as we can already see, by been only 1’17’’ behind the Kazakh HUMMER of Yuriy SAZONOV, but because of his win in the first stage he remains the leader of the ranking in the car category.
The Russian Anton GRIGOROV had also a very good day behind the wheel of his OSCAR, by taking the third step on the podium for the day. Thanks to his good performance yesterday, he is also third in the car’s scratch ranking behind SERRADORI but in front of Ricardo LEAL DOS SANTOS, also in good shape in the start of this rally as he finishes in 4th position.
Some other noticeable performances are for the 5th place of Kanat SHAGIROV in his TOYOTA, who finished just in front of Pascal THOMASSE who lost 30 minutes because of fuel pomp problem which he had to fix on his OPTIMUS. The French Rally Champion is in front of two of his teammates, from the Team MD Rallye Sport, Jérémie CHOIZEAU with as co-driver Jean BRUCY and Jean Noël JULIEN who is learning very quickly how to drive a 2 wheel drive OPTIMUS . After having started in 20th, Jean Antoine SABATIER signed a respectable position in the top 10 cars of the day. A quick word concerning the problems of the day is about Balazs SZALAY losing a wheel, Dominique HOUSIEAUX ripping off his front axle and four punctures for Joseph ROSSO who lost big in the T2 category, which today was won by Marat ABYKAYEV.
The French Proto driver is now second in the overall standings behind leader and stage one winner Yuriy Sazonov of Kazakhstan, who steered his hummer to second on the dune-filled day.
Sazonov crossed over one minute and 28 seconds behind Serradori.
Completing the top three in the car category was Russia’s Anton Grigorov in his OSC.
It was another Russian, Kamaz one-two in the trucks, but in reverse order from the day before.
This time reigning champ Anton Shibalov took first ahead of compatriot and stage one winner Sergey Kuprianov