Friday's action began with the 4.6km SSS1 Prologue in the morning, giving the teams their first experience of the terrain in Portalegre. French entry Louis Meric, contesting the SuperFinale alone, initially set the pace in the Stock class after topping the Prologue with a time of 4:10, with Portuguese team André Rodrigues/Ricardo Nunes leading the Open class on 4:08.
With the Prologue completed the field drove the 50km liaison to the town of Ponte de Sor for their first stop. From there they headed north to the start of SS2, a 69km stretch from Gavião to Nisa. Spain Cup Stock champion pair Pedro Delgado/Guifré Pujol Solsona built on their strong Prologue pace to take the top Stock position with a time of 1:02:08, ahead of Meric in second and Israeli pairing Yuval Sharon/Nimrod Kid Ofir in third.
Replicating his leading Prologue pace, Rodrigues again topped the Open class charts in SS2, leading with 1:01:29 ahead of Spanish Open class champions Jose Luis Garcia/Javier Moreno Blazquez and UK entry Christopher and Mark McPhee.
Friday's results determine the order that the YXZ1000R field starts on Saturday, meaning that Delgado, as the overall fastest YXZ1000R in the SuperFinale, will be the first racer to tackle the final 344km of SS3.
Full results can be found online at http://bajaportalegre500.cronobandeira.com/
