Words: Merzouga Rally
(15 October 2015) Stage 4 Liaison 15 km SS4 216 km Liaison 35 km total 266 km. After 387 km and a night spent in the bivouac in the middle of the desert without the support of the assistance teams, the second part of the Marathon stage took the start this morning for the longest special stage of the rally: 216 km in the Dayat Maider, a desert area that separates the regions of Merzouga and Zagora. Today sandy fast tracks and off-piste were on top of the menu. The Expert stopped after 90km at the CP2, while the Pro continued till the finish line located close to Rissani.
The winner of stage 4 was the Yamaha factory rider Alessandro Botturi. Always in the top 5 in the first 3 stages, the Italian did a great performance and finished ahead of Gerard Farres and Laia Sanz. With Antoine Meo withdrawing from the rally for a mechanical problem, Stefan Svitko leads the overall classification, with Botturi second at less than 2 minutes.
It was a bad day for Carlos Checa who crashed today and was brought by helicopter to the private hospital in Errachidia for further checks.
David Hernandez was the fastest of the Expert category in front of Valter Parisi and Maurizio Littame’. Among the quads Diego Ortega Gil shone.
In the SSV category second win stage for Medero- Ventaja in front of Henrichy – Bersey and Ibarz – Torne.
Tomorrow is the 5th and last day of the MR with the GP of the Dunes: two laps of a 45-km ring in the famous Erg Chebbi. Le Mans style start will be a show in the show of this spectacular stage.
Alessandro Botturi (Yamaha): it was a perfect stage. I really enjoyed the sandy parts but also the fats tracks on the plateau. The feeling with the bike was really good and I’m really satisfied. Tomorrow we will need to push to recover on Svitko. The Le Mans start will be fun and it will look like a motocross race. I’m ready for it”.
Antoine Meo (Meo): “I crashed just before the CP2 breaking the road book. I couldn’t continue without it and I didn’t want to take additional risks as I have to race in the last round of Assoluti d’Italia this Sunday, where I’m leading the championship. I really enjoyed the Merzouga Rally and it was important to gain more experience in preparation of the Dakar”.
Medero – Ventaja (Delfi Sport): “It’s a great satisfaction to win two stages in a row. We struggled on stage1 and 2 but we are really”.
Provisional Results SS4
Pro
1 14 BOTTURI Alessandro Yamaha
2 9 FARRES GUELL Gerard KTM
3 3 SANZ PLA-GIRIBERT Eulalia KTM
4 21 MONLEON HERNANDEZ Arm KTM
5 2 KLIMCIW Ondrej KTM PRRALLY
Expert
1 75 HERNANDEZ-GARCIA David
2 94 PARISI Valter KTM
3 93 LITTAMÈ Maurizio Yamaha
SSV
1 203 FIDEL MEDERO JUAN M.
2 201 HENRICY F - BERSEY E
3 208 IBARZ ALZURIA ROBERTO C
Quad
1 69 ORTEGA GIL DIEGO Yamaha
Visit http://live.merzougarally.com/stage-4/results/ for the results.
Watch the VIDEO of Stage 3: http://live.merzougarally.com/stage-2/videos/
