Thursday starts with the departure ceremony for the Baja Portalegre 500, a race counting towards the FIA Bajas World Cup. There are 112 entries in the cars category, out of the 415 that will be participating in the Alentejo round. There are also 84 entries in the SSV category and 59 in Promotion/Hobby.
The route has 439km of timed stages for the cars, while the SSVs will cover 368.1km against the clock. The distance for Promotion and Hobby is 183.7km. The 3.7km prologue marks the start on Friday morning at Herdade das Coutadas, followed by a selective sector. On Saturday, there are two more selective sectors for the cars and one for the SSVs. This entire itinerary may be even more challenging due to the heavy rains that have been affecting the country.
Counting towards the FIA Bajas World Cup, the Baja Portalegre 500 features some big names. One of them is the current leader and two-time Rally-Raid World Champion, Nasser Al-Attiyah, making his debut in the Prodrive Hunter.
Yazeed Al Rajhi (Toyota) is another renowned name at the start, along with several Portuguese drivers such as João Ferreira (MINI), Tiago Reis (Toyota), João Ramos (Toyota), and Miguel Barbosa (Toyota).
The T3 category will have Ricardo Porém making his debut in a Can-Am, for what will be his 15th participation in Portalegre, while Armindo Araújo (Can-Am) and last year’s protagonists, João Dias (Can-Am) and Luís Portela de Morais (ORT3), are also names to watch out for.
