Transiberico: Honda dominates the prologue and stage 1 / Rally Raid World Championship

Contrary to the entry list, Honda is not fielding Ricky Brabec in the BP Ultimate Transiberico, who will instead take part in PR events in the US. This year’s Dakar winner is Honda’s best-placed driver in the World Championship standings and in his absence, the leader of Ross Branch from the German-Indian hero team can face the meeting in Portugal and Spain with little risk.

Transiberico is on the World Cup calendar for the first time and it brings something new with it. For the first time, the introduction and the first step were held on the same day. This makes sense because for the best pilots the short races were initially completed in less than four minutes and were nothing more than a warm-up.

For obvious reasons, navigation did not play a role, so the speed was much higher. Since there has been a lot of rain in the south of the Iberian Peninsula in recent weeks, the roads can sometimes be dangerously slippery. The inaugural winner was Tosha Schareina. Of Honda’s factory drivers, the Spaniard probably knows the terrain best.

On stage 1, two RallyGP drivers missed the track and received time penalties. Hero driver Sebastian Bühler was given four minutes, his colleague Branch two minutes. Because Adrian van Beveren (Honda) left the neutral zone too early, the Frenchman suffered a twelve-minute penalty.

Schareina again set the fastest time on the 101km special stage in 1:12. “We started very well and won the preliminaries. It was a lot of sand and pits full of water,” said the Honda rider from Valencia. .”

Compatriot Lorenzo Santolino from the Sherco team finished four minutes behind, followed by Skyler Howes (Honda). Sebastian Bühler, who lives in Portugal, was also on the fast track and finished in 6th place, 5:35 minutes behind despite a time penalty.