Elisabete Jacinto stood out on today’s stage of Africa Eco Race by having ended in the second place among trucks being faster than the two Russian pilots of KAMAZ leading the T4 class. The long special that had 445 timed kilometers, held between Akjoujt and Aout, was very well disputed and, along the route, there were several changes in positions of the first four trucks.
The OLEOBAN® team overcame quickly the difficulties of the route and managed to finish behind the Czech Tomas Tomecek, a pilot with much experience in this type of ground, who was the big winner of the day of the truck category.
The MAN TGS from the OLEOBAN team was the second truck to arrive to the end of the ninth stageIn this ninth stage of the race the Portuguese trio, formed by Elisabete Jacinto, José Marques and Marco Cochinho, faced once again a less 
favorable floor to their MAN TGS because the stage acrossed a large area of dunes. However, the Portuguese formation took well advantage of the delay of the Russian pilots, whose trucks were stuck in the soft sand, to achieve a good performance, « today was another typical Mauritanian stage. The track consisted of very difficult dunes and areas with a lot of weed. It was a very slow and laborious special. As we were the eighth team to leave for the stage and the sixth to enter the dunes we didn’t had many trails ahead of us and the sand was little compact. So we decided to follow the tracks of cars. But it was not a good ideia because we ended up getting buried. We stopped, for a very long time, to dig which delayed us a lot. Then we did everything with great caution. We had to do a lot of maneuvers with the truck; however, we managed to spend the last kilometers of dunes without problems. The KAMAZ also got stuck in the soft sand and, with this setback of the Russians, we went ahead and managed to get second in our category, » said Elisabete Jacinto
OLEOBAN team successfully overcame the difficulties of the ninth stage of the 2016 AER The team OLEOBAN® departs to the step tomorrow, the penultimate scoring for the final classification, in third place among trucks and 14th in the combined auto / truck table. Elisabete Jacinto has 44 minutes ahead to Tomas Tomecek, who takes the fourth position among trucks. Anton Shibalov, pilot of the KAMAZ formation, continues to be the fastest T4 figuring now in 
seventh position in the overall standings. Immediately afterwards, in ninth overall, stands his teammate Sergey Kuprianov.
Tomorrow will be played the tenth stage of the Africa Eco Race, which will be made in boucle departing and arriving in Akjoujt. The timed 379 kilometers will not be easy for competitors because the step is characterized by the presence of sand and dunes along the entire route. It will be a very characteristic Mauritanian step.
Anabela Martinho,