Orlando Terranova will compete for Bahrain Raid Xtreme in the second Prodrive Hunter alongside Sebastien Loeb at next month’s Rally Andalucía (7-12 June), round three of the World Rally-Raid Championship.
Loeb and co-driver, Fabian Lurquin, currently lead the championship by just one point from Nasser Al-Attiyah, and will be looking to extend their lead on the five leg event, which covers around 1500km of mainly gravel stages in the south west corner of Spain. It will be the first time both Loeb and Terranova have competed on the event, which is only in its third year.
The terrain is a very different challenge to that faced by both drivers at the Dakar and then subsequently Loeb at the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge. Rather than open desert and predominantly sand and dunes, Andalucía is much closer to a traditional gravel rally on the World Rally Championship, typically following tracks, but each day covering a similar distance to an entire WRC event.
Loeb said: “Andalucía and the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge couldn’t be more different. The hundreds of kilometres of sand and dunes are replaced by gravel tracks, which will be similar to those on the WRC on events like Portugal or Greece. The Hunter and the T1 cars are not really designed for this terrain, but that is part of the challenge of the championship. To win here it means you must run at the head of the field and clean the road for the following cars, so I think it will be difficult for any one to open up a big lead.”
Terranova will once again be joined by co-driver Dani Oliveras. Their last outing was fourth place on the Dakar, Orlando’s best ever finish.
Terranova said: “I can’t wait to get back in the Hunter again. It’s been four months since the Dakar. The challenge this time is quite different to the desert of Saudi Arabia. However, we showed in Baja Aragon last year that we had good pace in the Hunter in what should be similar conditions. The car is of course now bigger and wider than then and I am looking forward to testing ahead of the event and getting a feel for it on these smoother conditions.”
Both Hunters will once again be running on Prodrive EcoPower, a sustainable fuel made from agricultural waste by BRX team partner Coryton. The fuel reduces CO2 emissions by 80% compared to petrol and, over the course of the rally, the team will save around 3 tonnes of CO2.
Rally Andalucía is round three of the World Rally-Raid Championship, following the cancellation of the event in Kazakhstan.
W2RC leaderboard:
Sebastien Loeb 112pts
Nasser Al-Attiyah 111pts
Yazid Al Rajhi 71pts