• Three-way title battle heats up with two events remaining after Eco Rallye Bilbao Petronor
• Hugely impressive economy run for Spanish-entered Mini Cooper SE
• One competitor excluded for infringing local traffic laws

An impressive 33-car entry assembled this weekend for the fourth annual Eco Rallye Bilbao Petronor, Round 6 of the all-electric 2023 Bridgestone FIA ecoRally Cup. The series allows amateur drivers and co-drivers to compete in regularity rallies across Europe, driving a pre-planned route amid regular traffic and subject to all local traffic laws while attempting to get as close as possible to their target times at each check-in.

As a further test of the crews’ skills, the regularity forms only the smaller aspect of their overall result. The clincher between success and failure is how well the driver and co-driver were able to conserve energy throughout the route. In the Bridgestone FIA ecoRally Cup, ‘first past the post’ is no guarantee of victory.

On Friday afternoon the field of cars streamed out of the Spanish port city at one-minute intervals to tackle the route of three regularities that would take them up into the foothills of the famous green mountains inland of Bilbao.

By the time that the crews returned to recharge, the overnight lead was held by local crew Txema Foronda and Pilar Rodas in their small but highly efficient Renault Zoë, with series regular and former ecoRally Cup champion Eneko Conde Pujana and co-driver Lukas Sergnese in their Kia E-Niro holding second place overall.

The second-placed Spaniards were cheered by their performance as they sought to close the points gap to this year’s ecoRally Cup points leaders, the Czech pairing Michal Žd’arsky and Jakub Nábēle. The championship leaders ended their first day in sixth overall before the overnight halt.

After seven-and-a-half hours on charge and some much-needed rest for the crews, the cars left Bilbao for the rigours of a very full schedule on the second day.

The main talking point of at the mid-day recharge was the exclusion of car number 31, the Nissan Leaf of Mikel Mostajo and Javier Zuazola, who took a wrong turn on a road section and then broke the local traffic laws in their bid to recover the lost time – being penalised under article 6 of the Bridgestone FIA ecoRally Cup sporting regulations.

With this drama aside, the remaining regularities were completed in good order, with victory in terms of time falling to Portuguese pairing Eduardo Santana Godinho and José Carlos Figueiredo in their Kia E-Niro. Žd’arsky and Nábēle ranked second in the driving element, while Conde and Sergnese held fifth.

Next for the crews came the long wait as the FIA technical delegates and stewards worked long hours cross-checking the data from each car concerning their energy consumption. At 11:30 on Sunday morning the final results were declared, with Portuguese crew Pedro Morais and Silvia Coutinho being declared the overall winners.

Despite finishing third overall on time alone, the pair had managed the consumption of their Hyundai Ioniq to perfection, leapfrogging them to the top of the order. Having previously finished second on their last outing in this year’s series, at home on the Oeiras Eco Rally in April, they were delighted to go one better to secure victory in Spain.

“It is an incredible feeling to say that we can compete at the highest level and to build on what we have learnt so far in ecoRally competition,” said Morais. “This is a special moment in a special event.”

Although the consumption shown by Morais was impressive, the leader in this aspect was none other than the electric Mini Cooper SE of Spanish pairing Luis Antonio Penido and Adolfo Gonzalez-Almuiña. Although they finished 19^th in terms of their performance on the regularities, the pair found themselves hoisted to sixth overall once their hugely impressive energy use was factored in.

Amid such a game of snakes and ladders on the leaderboard, consistency paid off for both of the two main title contenders. Žd’arsky remained in second place overall while Conde was finally ranked fourth, behind Italian regular Guido Guerrini and his Polish co-driver Artur Prusak in their Kia E-Niro – a result which put them right in the thick of this year’s title race.

The points gained from impressive energy saving push Guerrini past Conde into second in the current standings of the Bridgestone FIA ecoRally Cup. Just eight points span the gap between the top three in the title race, who are now opening up a gap to the rest of their competitors.

“This one is important because we were disappointed with our finish on the last round in Slovenia,” said points leader Žd’arsky after the event. “Second place ahead of Guido and Eneko gives us just a little more space to breathe in the points. There is so little to choose between us, I think it is going to be an exciting and nervous time in the two remaining events.”

Eco Rallye Bilbao Petronor Top 10 Results

Date: September 29-October 1, 2023. Location: Bilbao, Spain.

Bridgestone FIA ecoRally Cup standings (top 10 after 6 of 8 rounds)