Tosha Schareina and Marcos Baumgart win shortened Rally dos Sertoes
Tosha Schareina made a bold call to give up his chances at winning the Baja Aragón in his home country for the fourth straight year in favor of going to Brazil to make his debut in the Rally dos Sertões. While the race was shorter than hoped after the final two stages were canceled due to heavy rain, the move worked out pretty well.
With time between W2RC races for him and his Monster Energy HRC team, Schareina decided to try his hand at Brazil’s largest rally raid in partnership with Honda’s Brazilian subsidiary. He wasn’t the only W2RC regular present as he was joined on Honda Racing Brasil by former Rally2 champ Romain Dumontier while the Baumgart brothers held down the fort on the Auto side with their Toyota Hiluxes. By the end, Schareina and Marcos Baumgart were the respective overall winners on two and four wheels.
Schareina dominated the race, but it took a bit of time to get up to speed. He got lost in the Prologue due to misreading the roadbook that dropped him to 38th for the day with a four-minute penalty for not following the route. Despite starting SS1 further back as a result, he rode through the dust to finish second behind teammate Martin Duplessis.
From there, the Spaniard hit his stride by winning every stage. He passed Duplessis in Stage 2 and pulled away to win by nearly four minutes, then continued to grow his lead by stacking up stage victories. The only real opposition he faced was tire management, having to ride more conservatively in Stages 4 and 5 under marathon conditions. Dumontier kept close to Schareina until he retired 20 kilometers from the SS4 finish because of an engine failure while running second.
With Dumontier out of the picture, Schareina cruised to victory by 48 minutes and 22 seconds over the Yamaha of Gabriel Bruning.
“I had very high expectations for this rally, and it has been much tougher than I thought,” said Schariena. “It has been a long distance, like a mini-Dakar. Today we arrived with a big lead, but the stage had to be suspended for safety reasons because it has been raining heavily.”
Monster Energy HRC manager Ruben Faria, who accompanied Schareina to Brazil, also likened Sertões to the Dakar Rally when it ran through South America in the 2010s. Although Dakar never crossed Brazil during this stretch, he found similarities between it and Sertões’ atmosphere and challenges.
“The bivouac was incredible, there were a large number of participants, and it was a race with very different terrains, which meant that Tosha had to adapt every day,” Faria offered.
Marcos Baumgart and his brother Cristian battled with the Century CR7 of 2023 winner Marcelo Gastaldi early on. Gastaldi drew first blood by winning the opening stage, but Cristian’s consistency allowed him to slip ahead after three days. Disaster struck Gastaldi on Stage 4 with vehicle problems and a 1:32:30 penalty that knocked him out of the picture.
Cristian continued to lead as he strung together three straight wins from Stage 3 to 5, but was eliminated himself in SS6. Marcos, who won SS2, inherited the lead and held off Pedro Queirolo by 4:54 to claim the overall.
After finishing second in 2024, Zé Hélio topped the overall for UTVs. Although he only had a single stage victory in SS1, Hélio coincidentally cleared Rodrigo Varela by 4:54.
Varela had to dig himself out of an early hole when mechanical issues dropped him to 25th overall and 13th in class for Stage 1. While he won two stages with two more podiums, including a runner-up on the final day, it wasn’t enough to catch Hélio.
Fernando Fernandes de Pádua, a paracanoeist who won his category at the ICF Canoe Sprint World Championships thrice in the early 2010s before becoming a TV host, took part in the marathon stage with an adapted UTV developed by Fifi Rally Team. The team’s lead driver Lélio Júnior won the Challenger class in a backup car after his primary suffered a severe transmission failure that knocked out the powertrain days before the race.
2024 overall winners Lucas Moraes (Auto), Adrien Metge (Moto), and Denisio do Nascimento (UTV) did not take part. Metge was due to defend his title but was sidelined by head injuries he suffered in a crash at the Rally do Jalapão in mid-June.
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