Three-minute starting intervals were handed to the leading 10 riders and Prologue winner Tosha Schareina opted to start 10th with the dubious distinction of being first on the road falling to his Honda team-mate Skyler Howes.
The Spaniard initially came home in third place, despite getting lost at one point, although he was happy not to have to open the road on Thursday. However, that all changed when time penalties were imposed on three of his rivals and Schareina was handed the stage win and a 1min 35sec lead in the overall classification.
The Bas World KTM Racing Team’s Bradley Cox managed to call upon his experience of similar terrain around his native Durban in South Africa to initially top the overall Rally2 timings and finish the opening stage on top in the motorcycle category.
The stage was split into two sections of just over 97km to a regroup and then the remaining three-kilometres in Santiago do Cacém, where the final sprint to the finish in muddy and slippery conditions was filmed live on Portuguese television and other international networks.
Cox held off a late challenge from the Monster Energy Honda Team’s Adrien van Beveren to win the stage by 16 seconds to take an overall lead of eight seconds into the night halt in Grândola.
But three of the leading four riders were penalised by FIM officials after the stage with Van Beveren and Edgar Canet incurring 12-minute penalties and Cox taking a 20-minute hit. Van Beveren slipped to 14th, Canet dropped back to 17th and Cox fund himself in a lowly 27th.
Van Beveren said: ““It was not so easy to carry on and find a rhythm. It is different to the rally that I normally do…”
German Hero rider Sebastien Bühler has lived in Portugal most of his life and currently resides in Relíquias, 80km from the event’s base in Grândola. He settled quickly over familiar terrain and finished the stage with the fifth quickest time and climbed to second overall after the time penalties had been handed out.
W2RC leader Ross Branch of the Hero Motorsports Rally Team was classified in third, Sherco’s Lorenzo Santolini came home in fourth, Howes was fifth and Portugal’s António Maio (Yamaha) and Honda’s Pablo Quintanilla were sixth and seventh.
Branch said: “I had a big crash this morning. I came to a corner and came off the bike and decided to slow it down a little.”
Canet’s time penalty on the XRaids Experience KTM lifted Frenchman Romain Dumontier (Husqvarna) to the top of the Rally2 rankings and eighth overall, ahead of Portugal’s Bruno Santos and Frenchman Mathieu Doveze.
The Portuguese rider Gonçalo Amaral led the Rally3 section on his Honda and Manuel Andujar of Argentina moved into a useful lead of 6min 23sec over Lithuania’s Antanas Kanopkinas in the quad category. Andujar said: “I am going to keep fighting through the whole race.”
Kamil Wisniewski ground to a halt with overheating issues near the finish of the second part of the start but managed to reach the end in the quads. “My quad, no water,” said the Pole.
Tomorrow (Thursday), competitors tackle a second selective section of 193.04km.