A storming time of 3min 41sec was sufficient for five-time Dakar Rally winner Nasser Saleh Al-Attiyah and his French co-driver Edouard Boulanger to win the opening 3.53km Prologue stage at Grândola on Wednesday morning.
The opening stage does not count towards the overall FIA W2RC classification but a good starting position is crucial for drivers and riders on the narrow and muddy rural tracks in Portugal.
The Qatari finished six seconds ahead of Brazilian Lucas Moraes in his Prodrive Hunter and will be able to choose his favourable starting position for the afternoon’s opening 100.95km stage from a start in Santo André, via Sines, Santiago do Cacém and Ortiga to finish in Relvas.
But the revelation of the Prologue was the performance of the three Portuguese crews of Luis Portela/David Megre (OT3), Miguel Barbosa/Luis Ramalho (Taurus) and João Dias/João Miranda (Can-Am), who finished second, third and fourth quickest and topped the times in the Challenger category.
Toyota Gazoo Racing’s Moraes and Spanish co-driver Armand Monleón were two seconds faster than their team-mates Seth Quintero and Dennis Zenz in the Ultimate category and they are still given priority over Challenger crews in choosing their starting positions under V1 Art. 34.5.2 of the FIA 2024 Cross-Country Rally Sporting Regulations.
The Can-Am Factory Team’s Rokas Baciuška also delivered a stunning performance to finish sixth with co-driver Oriol Vidal and finished fourth in the Challenger category in a Can-Am Maverick X3. Cristina Gutiérrez also beat Quintero in her Taurus T3M and pushed the American down to eighth. Portugal’s Luis Cicade and Armindo Araújo rounded off the top 10 in their Can-Ams.
Overdrive Racing Toyotos filled the three of the next four positions in the Ultimate class with Guerlain Chicherit teaming up with Al-Attiyah’s former co-driver Mathieu Baumel to take sixth and 11th overall.
Portugal’s Joao Ferreira and Filipe Palmeiro delivered a strong performance on their first race in the Ultimate class with the X-Raid JCW Rally Plus and slotted in behind Challenger runner Ghislain de Mévius into 13th and ahead of the Toyotas of Guillaume De Mévius/Xavier Panseri and Yazeed Al-Rajhi/Timo Gottschalk.
Four-time Dakar Rally winner Carlos Sainz began his return to the X-Raid Team cautiously with co-driver Alex Haro and was classified in 23rd, sandwiched between the two X Rally Team Hunters of Marcos and Cristian Baumgart in the Ultimate class.
Nine-time WRC champion Sébastien Loeb will take part in a full W2RC programme with Dacia in 2025 and has entered the Portuguese event to gain experience of the stages in a Taurus T3M. The Frenchman clocked a time of 3min 57sec in the
Challenger category and that put him into 25th in the overall rankings just behind Portuguese driver Ricardo Porém in Challenger.
The Portuguese duo of Gonçalo Guerriero and José Sá Pires are not registered for the W2RC but topped the SSV times in a Polaris. South Racing Can-Am’s João Monteiro was second and the W2RC championship-leading Yasir Seaidan carded the third quickest time.