Peugeot Rally Cup Ibérica: First win for Ruairi Bell and title for Daniel Berdomás

30/10/2019

The Peugeot Rally Cup Ibérica, a series organized by Sports & You that combines rounds in Spain and Portugal, was also secured at the 55 RallyRACC, where the 15 participating teams only needed to do the first day, as they did in the Portuguese Rally, another of the rounds in the calendar.

In the second World Championship round included in the season, the title was for Daniel Berdomás, who, thanks to his sixth place, secured the victory in this second edition with one round to go, the Rally CAM-RACE, which will take place at the end of November in Madrid.

Pedro Antunes/Mário Castro were the first leaders of the RallyRACC after the Gandesa stage, a position they kept after the second stage, Horta-Bot, that was won by Sergi Francolí/María Salvo. The longest and most difficult stage was La Fatarella-Vilalba, which included tarmac sections in a day mostly made of gravel stages. At the end, it meant a change in the overall standings because, although the fastest time was set by Josep Bassas/Axel Coronado, the lead went to Georg Linnamäe/Volodomyr Korsia with an advantage of only 1''6 ahead of Bassas and 1''9 over Ruairi Bell/Darren Garrod. A puncture in the second stage and the problem with the brakes in the third delayed Daniel Berdomás/David Rivero, the provisional leader of the series before this round, while Francolí also suffered a puncture in the third stage.

With the options open for the afternoon and the second pass through the specials, Linnamäe had to concede the lead after having an off in Horta-Bot and Ruairi Bell took the lead. Antunes, delayed due to steering problems in the previous loop, was the fastest both in Gandesa and Horta-Bot, but his attack proved useless when he suffered an engine problem in the last stage, La Fatarella-Vilalba, and finished in the last positions. In this last stage, the fastest were Carlos Fernandes/Nuno Ribeiro, who were able to get on the podium, although lost the second place by just one second behind Josep Bassas. Ruairi Bell took then his first victory in the Peugeot Rally Cup Ibérica.

Nevertheless, Bassas' second place was not enough to prevent Daniel Berdomás from securing the title, as the sixth place of the driver from Galicia was enough to get the title after last year's winner, the also Galician Roberto Blach Núñez. The prize for Berdomás will be a test and the participation in a national rally with a car of the R5 category prepared by Sports & You, promoter and organizer of the single-brand series in which all participants have a Peugeot 208 R2 and the same conditions.

Meanwhile, the rest of the Spanish teams finished as follows, Delbin García/Cándido Carrera were fifth, Sergi Francolí/María Salvo seventh, José Luis Peláez/Rodolfo del Barrio eighth and Miquel Labarias/Jordi Sánchez tenth in their first participation in the series. Among the retirements, Ramón Cornet/Dani Noger had to stop after the first loop due to a problem with the damper and Santiago García/Néstor Casal retired after breaking all the studs of a wheel in the penultimate stage.

Final Classification of the 55 RallyRACC – Peugeot Rally Cup Ibérica
1-Ruairi Bell/Darren Garrod, 1h36'14''7 (1^st Junior Cup)
2-Josep Bassas/Axel Coronado, a 29''0
3-Carlos Fernandes/Nuno Ribeiro, a 30''0
4-Ricardo Costa/Sérgio Rocha, a 1'23''4
5-Delbin García/Cándido Carrera, a 1'47''4
6-Daniel Berdomás/David Rivero, a 2'18''0
7-Sergi Francolí/María Salvo, a 2'34''4
8-José Luis Pelaez/Rodolfo del Barrio, a 3'22''7
9-Paulo Moreira/Marco Macedo, a 8'05''9
10-Miquel Labarias/Jordi Sánchez, a 9'48''3
11-Pedro Antunes/Mário Castro, a 10'22''5
12-Georg Linnamäe/Volodomyr Korsia, a 13'01''8
13-Nabila Tejpar/Hugo Magalhães, a 14'09''1 (1^st Ladies Cup)

Provisional Classification Peugeot Rally Cup Ibérica (after 5 rounds of 6)
1-Daniel Berdomás, 103,43 points
2-Josep Bassas Mas, 68,21 points (1st Junior Cup)
3-Ruairi Bell, 65,00 points
4-Carlos Fernandes, 64,04 points
5-Daniel Nunes, 44,09 points
6-Ricardo Costa, 33,00 points
7-Pedro Antunes, 32,12 points
8-Sergi Francolí, 30,83 points
9-José María G. Reyes, 26,42 points
10-José Luis Peláez, 25,00 points
… up to 25 classified.