PORDENONE ITALY: Nasser Saleh Al Attiyah of Qatar topped in the 22nd Italian Baja, round five of the FIA World Cup for Cross-Country Rallies, which took place over five special stages and finished at Pordenone in north-eastern Italy on Sunday.
Overdrive Racing Toyota Hiluxes finished second, third and fourth overall.
The Brazilian duo of Reinaldo Varela and Gustavo Gugelmin won one stage and led the way for the Belgium-based team with second overall, a mere 1min 24sec behind race winner Al Attiyah. Russian driver Vladimir Vasilyev and navigator Konstantin Zhiltsov joined Overdrive Racing for the first time for the Italian event and maintained their lead in the FIA World Cup for Cross-Country Rallies with a solid third overall and the final place on the podium.
The Polish duo of Marek Dabrowski and Jacek Czachor reached the finish in fourth overall in their Team Orlen Toyota Hilux.
Russian Aleksandr Zheludov and Anton Nikolaev ran an Overdrive Toyota Hilux under the Protech Motorsport banner and held third at the start of the final stage before suffering technical issues over the closing kilometres.
It was a superb stage for Overdrive Racing: Vasilyev was second quickest, Zheludov was third and Dabrowski finished fifth. It meant that Toyotas filled first, second, third and fourth places after two stages.
Al Attiyah stormed back into contention on the repeat run of the morning’s stage and the Qatari beat Varela by 1min 24sec to take an overall lead of 45 seconds over the Brazilian. The third fastest time was sufficient for Zheludov to reach the overnight halt in the final podium position. Vasilyev and Dabrowski held fourth and fifth overall, courtesy of similar finishing positions on the third stage.
Al Attiyah was again quickest on Sunday morning’s 84.68km selective section and the Qatari extended his outright lead to 1min 09sec over Varela, who set the second quickest time.
Al Attiyah duly confirmed victory by the margin of 1min 24sec with the quickest time in the final stage.The Peninsula
