Team HRC’s Joan Barreda scored his third overall win while Honda claimed four of the top five spots at the 2016 Baja Aragon Rally in Teruel, Spain, yesterday.
Barreda was the best man over the three days of competition, setting the fastest time in the prologue and then winning the two-part opening stage on Saturday to set himself up with a lead of more than 7 minutes for the final stage. Barreda kept his CRF450R pinned on the last day as well (Barreda did not ride his usual CRF450 Rally machine), adding another minute to his final margin of victory over fellow Spaniard Gerard Farres, the defending Baja Aragon Champion. Barreda’s teammate, Michael Metge of France finished third overall.
Barreda completed his event sweep with a final time of 7 hours, 1 minute and 22 seconds.
“I’m really happy, particularly because we were able to race without making any mistakes, which was our original aim,” Barreda said. “We set out looking for a very fast pace. There were some stretches where we were really able to push hard. I had to really get to grips with the smaller, more aggressive bike, which will be good for us when we move back to the bigger bike.”
Farres’ Himoinsa KTM was the only non-Honda to break inside the top five overall as two more Honda-mounted Spanish riders, Oriol Mena and David Adrià, finished fourth overall and fifth overall on machines supported by Honda España on behalf of Impala and RedMoto.
2016 Baja Aragon Rally
Teruel, Spain
Results: July 21-24
Overall Results (after Prologue plus two stages)
1. Joan Barreda (ESP)-Hon/7 hours, 1 minute, 22 seconds
2. Gerard Farres (ESP)-KTM/+00:08:17
3. Michael Metge (FRA)-Hon/+00:10:18
4. Oriol Mena (ESP)-Hon/+00:12:03
5. David Adrià (ESP)-Hon/+00:13:10
6. Joan Pedrero (ESP)-She/+00:14:03
7. Xaver De Soultrait (FRA)-Yam/+00:14:07
8. Marc Solà (ESP)-Yam/+00:23:42
9. Adrien Metge (FRA)-She/+00:29:03
10. Jose Manuel Pellicer (ESP)-Suz/+00:35:08
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