Baumgart, Andreotti win in Toyota’s debut in Portugal
The Baumgart brothers choose Portugal to get to grips with the new Overdrive-built Toyota Hilux IMA 2020 they will race in the Sertões in November. The first experience with the new car could not be better: Cristian Baumgart and Beco Andreotti won the Baja TT Capital dos Vinhos de Portugal, with Marcos Baumgart and Kleber Cincea third.
“That was a delightfull place to rally, it was a very interesting mix of terrains. Of course we felt some diferences from the Toyota in comparison to the Ranger, but we got used to it pretty well and pretty quickly. Right in the beginning we saw that we could fight for the win, so we went for it full throttle”, said Cristian, a three-time Sertões winner alongside Beco Andreotti.
The Brazilian duo won by the tiny margin of 10 seconds to Portugal’s Alejandro Martins and José Marques with a Mini. “We had a puncture in the final day’s first stage and we dropped to fourth. The team put four brand new BFGoodrich tires and we went to try to get the leaders. We were over a minute back”, Andreotti recalled.
Three-time Brazilian champions and current South American champions, Marcos Baumgart and Kleber Cincea finished third completing the podium. “It was a great race and the ‘test’ was a success. The Toyota and the Ford were very similar, however, they have some diferences. The BFGoodrich tires were perfectly fitted to give us the performance we needed”, Marcos highlighted.
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