MAPFRE, who battled for nearly 15 days with Dongfeng Race Team, won the stage in Melbourne (Australia) this Sunday 24th December 2017 at 17h07 French time after 14 days 4 hours 7 minutes and 21 seconds, at an average speed of 19.47 knots. A nice Christmas surprise for the Spanish crew, but above all a second consecutive victory after Cape Town. And knowing that leg 3 counts double, MAPFRE takes the lead in the general ranking!
From the beginning, the winner has been the favourite with a second place on the first stage Alicante-Lisbon, a first place on the second stage Cape Town and a new victory on this 3rd stage between Cape Town and Melbourne. A complicated 6500-mile course in the Southern Ocean.
Dongfeng Race Team - who had been leading the race from the start - lost the lead on December 19th to MAPFRE. And on Sunday 24th December, when the Spaniards learned that the distance to their closest competitor was 100 miles to the finish, Xabi Fernandez, the skipper of MAPFRE, was more than happy" What a relief on board! You just breathe and tell yourself you've got it under control. After such a long battle and more than 10 days in the Deep South, we've reached Melbourne in first place, in this momentous stage!"
"It's a fantastic victory, our second in a row. The stage was very hard, we had to fight, do a lot of manoeuvres, we are very happy, even if we know that the road is still long and that we have to keep on working step by step. The priority now will be to recover" explained the skipper on his arrival.
By scoring 15 points on this stage (points counting double and one bonus point), MAPFRE, with 29 points, has consolidated its pole position overall and widened its first significant gap over its rivals.
