The 48th edition of the Racc Rallye of Spain couldn't have started better for the Canarian team composed of Yeray Lemes and Rogelio Peñate. The driver from Lanzarote has finished the first of the three stages of the race in 12th position overall, second in the PWRC category and, so far, the best Spaniard in the final round of the World Rally Championship season. And all this on a complicated day marked by the rain that has muddied the sections that have been contested today. A result that allows us to be optimistic about the rest of the competition.
The rain was the protagonist of the first three sections of the Rallye Racc of Spain and made driving difficult for the drivers. There were many retirements on this first day and the teams had countless mechanical problems. Yeray Lemes and Rogelio Peñate, with the Mitsubishi Lancer Evo X, drove almost perfectly and immediately placed themselves in the top positions of the classification.
In the third section of the day, the "Terra Alta" of 44 kilometers of mixed surface; dirt and asphalt, Yeray Lemes set the best time in the PWRC category ahead of drivers who are playing all the options of the season. A record that allowed Yeray Lemes to take the lead in the Production section.
And they were setting the best time of the section despite having problems in the rear wheel of the car, after hitting the vehicle of a participant who had been stranded in the middle of the mud. Yeray Lemes commented that the first eight kilometers of the section "were full of traps" and explained that the "wheel luckily only bent". After passing through the Salou assistance, Yeray Lemes and Rogelio Peñate decided not to risk more than necessary, due to the poor condition in which some areas of the sections were due to the heavy rain that had fallen in the morning.
They did not take risks in those areas where they had doubts, which made them lose 14.8 seconds with respect to the Argentine Marco Ligato, to whom they gave the lead of the PWRC category momentarily. In the final part of the "Terra Alta" section, the Mitsubishi Lancer Evo X suffered a sudden loss of power, which prevented them from setting better records and assaulting the lead of their category. "We believe that it was the mud or a stone that clogged the exhaust or we bent it when we hit one of the curves", was the explanation given by Lemes to the sudden loss of power of the vehicle.
The first day of the Rallye Racc of Spain concluded with a 2-kilometer special in Salou. A formality section in which they reduced differences with respect to Marco Ligato. After this first day, Yeray Lemes and Rogelio Peñate occupy the second place in the PWRC class, 11.1 seconds behind Marco Ligato and 49.1 seconds ahead of Michal Kosciuszko. "The truth is that we thought they were going to be faster in this stage", Lemes said with respect to the rivals and regarding the car he explained that it had not "given a single problem, not even with the brakes". In addition, the Canarian team is in twelfth place overall and at the moment they are the best Spanish team in the rally.
The second stage of the Rallye Racc of Spain will be held entirely on asphalt. The teams will have to make two passes to the sections of "La Mussara" (20.48 km), "El Priorat" (45.97 km) and "Riba-roja d´Ebre" (14.20 km). It will be a day of more than 160 timed kilometers in which the resistance of the cars will be tested again. Yeray Lemes and Rogelio Peñate were ambitious for this second stage and assured that they were going to attack from the first kilometer.