Race’s eve predicting the winner among the threesome at the top of the FIA overall rank.
What can we do on the race’s eve while motors are still quiet? Nothing else than trying to predict the winner, basing the reasoning on the seasonal results and on what tested at the Italian Baja.
It is easy to choose Nasser Al Attiya as the main favored driver to get victory. The ace from Qatar won in both the occasions in which he took part in the Pordenone race. In 2008 with a Bmw X5 ahead on Boris Gadasin at the end of a killing duel, obliging the “Zar” to make a mistake on the last Selective Sector; last year with a Mini All4 Racing keeping the distance from the Brazilian Reinaldo Varela, the only driver able to keep quite a short distance from him. He now comes from two brilliant victories at the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge and at the Sealine Cross Country Rally driving a Toyota Hi Lux Overdrive, which secured himself the lead of the World Cup classification (120 points), dethroning his Lithuanian challenger Maris Neiksans, who came first at the Northern Forest in Saint Peteresburg.
The driver who twice seized the second position is the Saudi Yazeed Al Rajhi (84) with a Mini of the X-Raid Team, feeling more at his ease on the desert sand instead than among the stones of the Meduna, Cosa and Tagliamento stream beds. Anyway he is the one who could hardly fight as outrider.
The winner of the Italia Baja 2012, Vladimir Vasilyev (53) comes back now with a Bmw X3 of the G-Energy Team, a difficult client, the first challenger of his compatriot Gadasin (G-Force Proto), looking once more for a poker of victories after the winning editions in 2007, 2009, 2011. Vasilyev gained the second place in Russia in February, outside of the area where to make a good score in the Emirates, and the third position in April in Qatar.
What about Italians drivers? The FIA race will be faced by 20 of them, fighting against 36 foreign challengers; enthusiasm never dies, but there are other cards to be played.
The champion driver from Milan Lorenzo Codecà (Suzuki Grand Vitara V6), will try to conquer the top-ten but he will need favorable conditions besides a good vehicle and a very heavy right-food.
It deals on an absolute beginning in Cross Country for the pure Rally driver (till now) Alessandro Uliana (Grand Vitara 2.7), driver from San Donà di Piave, navigated by Angelo Mirolo, from Spilimbergo. His performance will be verified in a new context, while Elvis Borsoi (Toyota Toyodell), who came first as for original vehicles last year, is back for competing among Prototypes.
Press Office Italian Baja
Carlo Ragogna
