It was over a year since Alexandre Pinto raced in Challenger and he didn’t look rusty at all.

When the World Rally-Raid Championship returned to his home country for the BP Ultimate Rally-Raid Portugal, the reigning W2RC SSV champion decided to move back up into Challenger. He had finished runner-up in the 2024 European Baja Cup’s Challenger standings and was fifth in class at the inaugural Rally-Raid Portugal in a Can-Am, but decided to take on this year’s race in a Taurus.

While he was no stranger to T3 cars, Pinto knew the Taurus was a “new car for us, which takes some time of adaptation”. Indeed, Stage 1 was a messy affair as he struggled in the rain to a tenth in class.

Stage 2 seemed to continue, or even increase, the learning curve as he lost power steering. However, he was up for the task and responded by smashing the class and winning by seven minutes. From there, Pinto was basically unstoppable as he won every stage.

Charles Munster hung with Pinto and finished just six minutes back. His KTM X-Bow teammate Puck Klaassen wasn’t as lucky as she struggled without power steering and second gear.

Ricardo Porém won Stage 1, the first for the Kaizen S1 in its W2RC debut, but electrical issues caused the car to shut down three days later. He was able to rejoin the race for the final day, but could only finish a distant tenth.

The Kaizen wasn’t the only new T3 car in Portugal as Dakar winner Pau Navarro debuted the Viking Challenger. Unfortunately, a pre-existing issue that the team missed kept him from starting the first stage. He finished tenth in class for Stage 2 before retiring for good. Stéphane Sarrazin was supposed to debut the Minotor CH1 at the race, but withdrew.

Mechanical problems also took out Dania Akeel and Lucas del Rio. Akeel was taken out as early as the first day by engine issues. Del Rio had received a suspended disqualification for removing his cell phone from its sealed patch in Stage 3 to call his team to retire, before it turned out the car could continue to the end of the stage.

Mitchel van den Brink had a frustrating debut in Challenger as his Taurus was plagued by vehicle trouble all race long. The hood came off on the first day and kept blocking his vision, so he opted to race without it. Things got even worse in Stage 2 when the engine started to sputter and caused him to finish while going a paltry 25 km/h, then water got into the engine the next day while crossing a river and led to the car stalling.

By the end, he managed to score a sixth in class.

“Naturally, we had hoped for a better result. Still, we drove a solid rally,” said van den Brink. “We fought every day to finish as high up the leaderboard as possible, but because of all the bad luck, our effort isn’t reflected in the final results.”

Results

Finish	Overall	Number	Driver	Navigator	Team	Total Time	Margin
1	9	301	Alexandre Pinto	Bernardo Oliveira	Old Friends Rally Team	11:32:44	Leader
2	11	308	Charles Munster	Xavier Panseri	KTM X-Bow powered by G Rally Team	11:38:54	+ 6:10
3	21	309	Rui Carneiro	Fausto Mota	G Rally Team	12:24:58	+ 52:14
4	24	306	Pedro Gonçalves	Hugo Magalhães	BBR Motorsport	12:31:01	+ 58:17
5	25	317	Rómulo Branco*	João Serôdio	Palanca Motorsport	12:46:59	+ 1:14:15
6	28	316	Pál Lónyai*	Alexey Kuzmich	G Rally Team	12:55:26	+ 1:22:42
7	29	302	Puck Klaassen	Augusto Sanz	KTM X-Bow powered by G Rally Team	12:58:57	+ 1:26:13
8	35	310	Mitchel van den Brink	Bart van Heun	DaklaPack Rallysport	21:35:08	+ 10:02:24
9	40	305	Paul Spierings	Mark Solomons	Rebellion Spierings	30:05:02	+ 18:32:18
10	43	311	Ricardo Porém*	Nuno Sousa	Kaizen Factory Team	31:07:15	+ 19:34:31
11	48	314	Marco Pereira*	Eurico Adão	MetalMarinha Racing Team	35:45:02	+ 24:12:18
DNF	DNF	304	Lucas del Rio	Bruno Jacomy	Odyssey Academy by BBR	DNF	N/A
DNF	DNF	307	Dania Akeel	Sébastien Delaunay	Odyssey Academy by BBR	DNF	N/A
DNF	DNF	312	Óscar Ral*	Pol Ros	Vertical Motor Sport Team	DNF	N/A
DNF	DNF	315	Juan Gasso*	Ion del Cid	Moto Club Sabadell	DNF	N/A
DNF	DNF	336	Pau Navarro	Jan Rosa	Bairons SIA	DNF	N/A

Stage winners

Stage	Overall	Driver	Total Time
Stage 1	8	Ricardo Porém*	1:37:04
Stage 2	5	Alexandre Pinto	2:50:23
Stage 3	9	Alexandre Pinto	2:53:13
Stage 4	8	Alexandre Pinto	2:52:20
Stage 5	10	Alexandre Pinto	1:05:32

Featured image credit: Edoardo Bauer / Edophoto / DPPI / ASO