Armindo Araújo and Luís Ramalho, reigning national champions, fought to the last meter to win the race, securing a brilliant 2nd place, continuing in the fight for the national title.

Victor Senra and David Liste shone in this foray into the Portuguese championship, reaching a notable Top 4.

The Eurocidade Chaves Verín Trans-Siberian Water Rally, the penultimate race of the Portuguese Rally Championship season, was the place  for another demonstration of strength by The Racing Factory. In a season in which the luck factor was not always present, the team has demonstrated all its quality and determination, overcoming all difficult moments and being, as always, in the discussion of victories and titles.

Victory narrowly escaped the TRF, in a rally that, in addition to the dantesque weather conditions, also had some incidents that influenced the course of the race, mainly due to decisions taken that, at the very least, could be considered inconsistent with the defense. of sporting truth.

Armindo Araújo and Luís Ramalho were simply brilliant, proving why, between the two of them, ten national titles remain within the Skoda Fabia RS!

Attacking from the opening kilometer, Armindo Araújo became the first leader of the rally and became one of the two protagonists of an incessant duel for victory, with the difference between him and Kris Meeke never being more than 7.8 seconds and the leadership to change ownership five times throughout the 10 stages of the race.

The allocation of administrative times in the Power Stage, corresponding to the second passage through a special stage where, in the opening passage, Armindo Araújo had been clearly faster, as well as the annulment, after the race had ended, of a time control where his opponent directly entered by advance, like other pilots, which, necessarily and under normal conditions of scrupulous compliance with the regulations, would penalize him heavily, ended up being factors that hindered Armindo Araújo’s possibility of winning the race, achieving, even so, an excellent 2nd place, which puts the duo from The Racing Factory with real possibilities of going to Rali Vidreiro to compete for the title revalidation.

As for Victor Senra, the renowned Galician multi-time champion left no credit in the hands of others and was always in the fight for the top places, concluding the tough rally in 4th place, thus contributing to an excellent overall result for The Racing Factory.

In the end, Aloísio Monteiro, CEO of TRF, assumed a mix of satisfaction and indignation at the development and outcome of the race:

“We are obviously very proud of the demonstration of capacity and competitiveness of our team and our drivers. Armindo once again proved that he is a driver with international pace and deserved the victory, without any doubt. As for Victor Senra, the team was happy to have him with us and it was a pleasure to see how he was able to compete with the best national drivers, even without knowing the car and the rally. However, we cannot fail to express our indignation with everything that happened and with the decisions taken that, in our opinion, distorted the sporting truth and clearly harmed Armindo, Luís and our team. We tried everything to make the organization see how wrong his actions were, unfortunately without success. It now remains for us to analyze and act as regulations allow us, together with the authorities. But, whatever happens, the sporting truth of this championship is already at stake!”