Elisabete Jacinto won the sixth and penultimate stage of the Morocco Desert Challenge that took place today between Merzouga and Tendrara. The Bio-Ritmo® team was the fastest among the T4s to perform this special composed by 405 timed kilometers, the longest in this competition, and they took 5h53m11s to complete the entire selective sector. The Portuguese finished with a nine-minute lead to the Dutchman Martin Van Den Brink, the current leader of the truck class, and only one car managed to be faster than Elisabete Jacinto to complete today’s course including in this role the motorcycle competition.
The Portuguese formation, composed by Elisabete Jacinto, José Marques and Marco Cochinho, thus strengthened their overall position and they keep the third place in the truck category with a solid advantage of more than four hours for the Belgian Igor Bouwens who, at the wheel of an IVECO, is currently fourth in their class.
Elisabete Jacinto, who added her second stage victory on this rally, was the fastest driver among the Portuguese in the race and made a positive assessment of the day:
“It was a very beautiful stage on the Moroccan plateaus. Today the tracks were smooth and once it didn’t have many holes and ditches we were able to walk quite fast. Today we left in the fifth place and we were able to accelerate as much as possible until we started catching the trucks that departed in front of us. The navigation was complicated, but the Zé Marques never made a mistake and we came straight to the end. It was a great day. We are very happy with this victory”, said Elisabete Jacinto at the end of the special.
This edition of Morocco Desert Challenge is coming to an end. The seventh and final stage of this African race will be disputed tomorrow between Tendrara and Oujda and will be composed of 178 timed kilometers. This special will be shorter, but it won’t be easier. There will be a wide variety of routes that will alternate between fast tracks where competitors can accelerate without any risk and slower paths with lots of rock, holes and deep ditches. It will be a special that will require total concentration and a perfect navigation.