LOSAIL, Qatar: Nasser Saleh al Attiyah continued to rewrite his own history by securing a comfortable victory in the Qatar International Rally on Saturday.
The Qatari and French co-driver Matthieu Baumel managed the pace perfectly over the closing stages and guided their Autotek Motorsport Volkswagen Polo GTi R5 to a winning margin of 1min 48.4sec over Abdulaziz al Kuwari and his new Irish co-driver James Fulton.
Al Attiyah duly broke his own record of achieving a 15th victory in Qatar and a record breaking 77th Merc win in the 218-event history of the series. Baumel earned his 26th regional rally victory on the 41st running of the Qatar event to overhaul both Chris Patterson and Giovanni Bernacchini in the Hall of Fame. He now has his sights set on Ronan Morgan’s record of 41 successes.
“Today we did a really good job,” said Al Attiyah. “Leg one was a nice fight between me and Kris Meeke. It was (becoming) a nice race but when Kris get out from the race it was an easy day for us today. It was great to have some high level in the Qatar Rally. If you look this year we had seven R5s. It was an amazing race. Thanks to the QMMF. I hope to continue in this level for this championship and this year.”
Al Kuwari won three of the second’s day’s six special stages in his Tok Sport Skoda Fabia R5 and was pleased with the runner-up spot after infrequent rally appearances in recent seasons. Khalid al Suwaidi and his navigator Hugo Maghalaes rounded off the podium places to make it a Qatari driver 1-2-3.
Any hope of seeing Al Attiyah and visiting WRC star Kris Meeke battling for stage wins on the final day fizzled out when the Ulsterman was unable to restart after the team discovered engine damage on his SRT Skoda Fabia R5 that was sustained on stage five.
Nasser Khalifa al Atya and Lebanese co-pilot Georges Nader gave the host nation another driver inside the top four and Kuwait’s Meshari al Thefiri began the defence of his Merc 2 title in impressive fashion by winning the showroom category and finishing fifth overall in his Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution X.
OMANIS FINISH IN TOP 10
Qatar’s Rashid al Mohannadi and Oman’s Zakariya al Aufi reached the finish in seventh and eighth and Lebanon’s Ahmad Khaled was ninth. Oman’s Zakariya al Amri duly rounded off the top 10. Eleven of the original 17 starters completed the rally.
Oman’s Abdullah al Rawahi confirmed before the restart that exhaust sensor issues had forced him to retire as well.
Action resumes in the FIA Middle East Rally Championship with the Oman International Rally at the end of February.
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