08 November 2003 - 21:56 Miguel Barbosa wins Baja Anta da Serra and becomes Portuguese Off Road Champion

With more than 26 minutes of advantage over his followers, it was more than natural that Miguel Barbosa would win the 17th edition of the classical Baja Anta da Serra 500/Portalegre, considering that today’s S.S. had only a 15 km extension. That way, the 25 year old Mitsubishi works driver earns the very coveted Portuguese Off Road title, as his main rival and Portuguese Championship leader, Rui Sousa, first rolled-over his official Nissan Navara Pick-up right at the begging of the prologue and after a disastrous performance on second day's stage, having to cope with mechanical failures and a handful of mistakes which lead him to lose over half an hour to the front runners, and finaly he finished in 19th position.

For Barbosa, this is obviously a “very happy moment. This title is the result of a long term investment, and I owe it to my father”. But the young driver also reckons that “altogether, it turned out to be a quite difficult season, with lots of up and downs, where luck wasn’t always on our side. Even so, the team stayed united and managed always hand-over a very competitive Mitsubishi Strakar at the beginning of each race”.

Keeping up a consistent but competitive pace, Luis Dias ended a natural second, despite having lost time in second day trying to help his team-mate Rui Sousa. “This is a very fulfilling second place, just like last year. But today the Nissan Team is also sad for having lost an almost guaranteed Driver’s title. But that’s how unpredictable races are and Miguel won fair and square”, said Dias.

After second day's surprising performance, Thierry Charbonnier finished off the podium in a Bowler Wildcat “that is prepared for the Dakar and not for Bajas, which makes this third place even better”.

Pedro Gameiro took his Nissan Pathfinder to an easy victory in the T1 category (7th overall), while Francisco Esperto had no problems in the coming first among the Tomaz Mello Breyner Challenge entrants, a result that also gave him the victory in this monomarque trophy.

A2 Comunicacao
Press release, November 2nd 2003

Baja Anta da Serra 500/Portalegre - Results:

1 Miguel Barbosa (Mitsubishi), 5h31m13s
2 Luis Dias (Nissan), at 27m39s
3 Thierry Charbonnier (Bowler), at 33m01s
...
7 Pedro Gameiro (Nissan), at 44m29s (1st T1)
8 Francisco Esperto, at 45m05s (1st TMB Challenge)