The X-Raid Mini JCW Rally Plus crew headed an X-Raid Mini 1-2 with the local crew of Michal Maluszyński and Julita Maluszyńska finishing second, 2min 53.8sec behind the Ultimate category front-runners. Ferreira won the Prologue and all four stages at the Szczecin-based event.

The Portuguese said: “I am super happy that we won. The race was very tough, especially the second loop. We enjoyed the race a lot. There were a lot of spectators on all the stages. Thanks to X-Raid and to Filipe for their amazing jobs to make this victory possible.”

Belgian driver Ghislain de Mévius and his co-driver Johan Jalet rounded off the podium places in their G Rally Team OT3 and collected maximum points in the Challenger category.

Wlodzimierz Grajek and Michal Goleniewski brought their Toyota Hilux home in fourth but were not registered for the FIA World Baja Cup. Czech veteran Miroslav Zapletal and his Slovak navigator Marek Sykora were fifth overall in a self-built Ford F-150 Evo and Poland’s Martin Kaczmarski teamed up with Spaniard Armand Monleón to finish seventh and fifth in the Ultimate category in an Overdrive Racing Toyota Hilux.

The final start list for the fourth round of the FIA World Baja Cup featured 26 cars with 10 in the Ultimate category, nine running in the Challenger section and seven entered in the SSV class.

Ferreira topped the times on the opening Prologue stage of 9.40km, the Portuguese beating Yazeed Al-Rajhi by 9.1 seconds to claim a favourable starting position for the opening selective section of 152.80km through the nearby military proving ranges at Drawsko Pomorskie.

But two of the pre-event favourites retired prematurely: nine-time winner and defending champion Krzysztof Holowczyc didn’t even make the first stage in his FosfoPower-backed BMW X3.

As his co-driver Lukasz Kurzeja explained: “On the Prologue we had a problem with the engine and it was more difficult than we thought. It was the engine bearing on the main shaft completely broken. We tried to fight at night and we opened the engine to check it but there was no possibility to repair it in such a short time.”

Shortly after the start of the opening stage, he was joined on the list of retirements by Overdrive Racing’s Al-Rajhi, who had held second place in the Drivers’ Championship and topped the Ultimate category standings. A transmission problem sidelined the Toyota Hilux driver and his German co-driver Timo Gottschalk.

As Gottschalk explained: “So Baja Poland ended earlier than expected for us. We were, I think, going at a good speed in the first part of the stage. But a part in the transmission broke and we really could not move properly any more with the soft sand. We decided to stop because we were stuck deep in the forest. The race was over because it made no sense to continue with the other competitors doing well in the other groups.”

Ferreira topped the times on the fast and bumpy opening stage, despite a few navigational issues in the military area. The Portuguese headed for the service stop before the afternoon re-run of the special with a tiny 1.5-second lead over last year’s runner-up Maluszyński. The fastest time on the second run saw the Portuguese extend his advantage to 2min 29.2sec at the night halt in Szczecin.

The final morning’s action was completed by a pair of 25.00km stages. They started in Slawoszewo and finished at Szczecin Zawadzkiego and were split into two sections of 14.78km and 10.22km. The second part featured much of the event’s Prologue stage.

Ferreira beat Maluszyński by just 5.4 seconds through the opener to stretch his lead to 2min 34.6sec and another fastest time on the final stage confirmed the win.

Belgian Ghislain De Mévius wins Challenger category

Ghislain de Mévius dominated the Challenger category to move into FIA World Baja Cup overall and class title contention. He topped the Challenger times and finished fourth overall on the opening pass through the military proving grounds and carved out a Challenger category lead of 15.1 seconds over Dutchman Hans Weijs with Alexandre Pinto holding third and De Mévius’s FIA rivals Edouard Pons and Diego Martinez holding fourth and fifth.

The Belgian ceded the stage win to Pinto on the second pass but retained a lead of 13.7 seconds at the night halt. Pons, Weijs and Martinez rounded off the top five. De Mévius eased his pace through the final special but finished comfortably clear of Pons and his co-driver Jaume Betriu in their Past Racing Taurus T3 Max.

De Mévius said: “It was a great race for us, especially to finish third overall. I had a great battle with Alexandre Pinto until the final morning when he had two flat tyres. That was a shame because I like to have a battle like this.”

Runner-up Pons added: “It was not an easy race. The last lap, the tracks were completely destroyed with big holes. Second in Challenger and good points for the championship.”

Neither Weijs nor fourth-placed Portuguese driver Pinto (who suffered two punctures on the final day) were registered for FIA World Baja Cup points and that enabled series leader Diego Martinez to pick up points for third in his fifth-placed South Racing Can-Am Maverick and stay firmly in title contention at the head of the leader board. Emirati Khalid Al-Jafla earned points for fourth in his Taurus T3 Max.

Bialkowski tops SSVs; series leader Alvarez claims maximum points

Pole Tomasz Bialkowski was not registered for the FIA World Baja Cup but he and co-driver Dariusz Baśkiewicz dominated the SSV category in their Can-Am Maverick XRS Turbo RR.

They won the opening stage by over four minutes from the series-leading Fernando Alvarez and Xavier Panseri and increased their lead by a further 39.8 seconds on the second pass through the Drawsko Pomorskie stage.

Bialkowski eventually reached the finish 5min 54.2sec clear of Alvarez, but the Argentina-based Spaniard picked up another haul of maximum points to increase his lead in the SSV championship and remain the man to beat in the overall Drivers’ Championship in his South Racing Can-Am Maverick XRS Turbo RR.

Alvarez said: “We finished Baja Poland. It was a difficult Baja but we did very well. We won for the World Cup category and gained a lot of points, all the points possible, so we are really happy about that.  Now we have Baja Portalegre and then we go to the Middle East. I am also leading the SSV, I am leading the overall with more points so I need to keep the momentum going in Portugal.”

Spaniard Alexander Toril stayed ahead of his older brother Miguel to finish second and initially pick up points for second in the SSV class. Both drivers represented the Escuderia JMP Racing Team in their Can-Am Mavericks with their respective co-drivers Pedro Lopez and Rosa Romero.

But Alex Toril had broken a drive shaft on day one and decided to change the component in the neutralisation zone for refuelling. This was deemed to contravene the FIA Sporting Regulations and the Spaniard was handed a hefty stage penalty by the Stewards that dropped him to the foot of the rankings, his misfortune lifting his brother Miguel into second of the registered drivers.

Italian racer Amerigo Ventura (Yamaha), French veteran Claude Fournier (Can-Am) and Saudi Arabia’s Ibrahim Al-Muhanna (Can-Am) also benefited from the penalty as the other SSV finishers and collected FIA points for third, fourth and fifth places in the SSV class.

The FIA World Baja Cup resumes with Portugal’s BP Ultimate Baja Portalegre 500 on October 17th-19th.

2024 Columna Medica Baja Poland – final positions:

1. João Ferreira (PRT)/Filipe Palmeiro (PRT) Mini JCW Rally Plus                                             3hr 44min 12.1sec

2. Michal Maluszyński (POL)/Julita Maluszyńska (POL) Mini JCW Rally Plus                          3hr 47min 05.9sec*

3. Ghislain de Mévius (BEL)/Johan Jalet (BEL) G Rally Team OT3                                             3hr 57min 04.4sec

4. Wlodzimierz Grajek (POL)/Michal Goleniewski (POL) Toyota Hilux                                    3hr 59min 00.2sec*

5. Miroslav Zapletal (CZE)/Marek Sykora (SVK) Ford F-150 Evo+                                             4hr 00min 45.4sec

6. Eduardo Pons (ESP)/Jaume Betriu (ESP) Taurus T3 Max                                                        4hr 00min 48.9sec

7. Martin Kaczmarski (POL)/Armand Monleón (ESP) Toyota Hilux Overdrive                       4hr 01min 03.0sec

8. Hans Weijs (NLD)/Mark Salomons (NLD) Arcane T3                                                               4hr 01min 13.5sec*

9. Alexandre Pinto (PRT)/Bernando Oliveira (PRT) Can-Am Maverick X3                               4hr 06min 58.1sec*

10. Tomasz Bialkowski (POL)/Dariusz Baśkiewicz (POL) Can-Am Maverick XRS Turbo RR  4hr 08min 47.7sec*

11. Fernando Alvarez (ARG)/Xavier Panseri (FRA) Can-Am Maverick XRS Turbo RR            4hr 14min 41.9sec

12. Miguel Toril (ESP)/Rosa Romero (ESP) Can-Am Maverick XRS Turbo RR                         4hr 27min 05.7sec

13. Diego Martinez ARG)/Sergio Lafuente (URY) Can-Am Maverick                                        4hr 29min 10.8sec

14. Magdalena Zajac (POL)/Blażej Czekan (POL) Toyota Hilux                                                  4hr 29min 18.7sec

15. Khalid Al-Jafla (ARE)/Andrei Rudnitski (LTU) Taurus T3 Max                                              4hr 29min 53.5sec

16. Amerigo Ventura (ITA)/Erika Mingozzi (ITA) Yamaha YXZ 1000 R                                     4hr 34min 41.2sec

17. Mark Mustermann (AUT)/Michael Zajc (AUT) Can-Am Maverick X3                                4hr 35min 48.5sec*

18. Vincent Vroninks (BEL)/Dave Berghmans (BEL) Red-Lined Nissan Navara VK56            4hr 43min 50.6sec*

19. Tomasz Baranovski (POL)/Konrad Dudziński (POL) Toyota Hilux                                       4hr 45min 28.9sec

20. Claude Fournier (FRA)/Serge Gounon (FRA) Can-Am Maverick XRS Turbo RR               4hr 52min 07.6sec

21. Ibrahim Al-Muhanna (SAU)/Hassan Ali Obaid (ARE) Can-Am Maverick XRS Turbo RR 4hr 59min 38.1sec

22. Vic Flip (AUT)/Gerhard Schmiedberger (AUT) Can-Am Maverick X3                                5hr 06min 38.4sec*

23. Richard Aczel (GBR)/Wouter Rosegaar (NLD) Arcane T3                                                                      5hr 58min 43.3sec*

24. Alex Toril (ESP)/Pedro Lopez (ESP) Can-Am Maverick XRS Turbo RR                                6hr 58min 16.4sec

RETIREMENTS

Yazeed Al-Rajhi (SAU)/Timo Gottschalk (DEU) Toyota Hilux Overdrive                                                   SS1 - transmission

Krzysztof Holowczyc (POL)/Lukasz Kurzeja (POL) BMW X3                                                        Prologue - engine

*denotes not registered for FIA World Baja Cup