Poland’s Jakub Przygonski, Dubai-based Briton Sam Sunderland and Peru’s Alexis Hernandez won the second competitive stage of the Qatar Cross-Country Rally and hold the outright leads in the car, motorcycle and quad categories.
The stage of 334.08km ran between Rawdat Rashed and a finish close to the Sealine resort, south of Doha, in a fierce hot desert wind. Navigational issues were a factor for many crews and Abu Dhabi Racing’s Sheikh Khalid Al-Qassimi lost vital minutes before the second passage control. Qatar’s Nasser Saleh Al-Attiyah, on the other hand, suffered power steering and gearbox woes and was lucky to lose so little time.
Saudi Arabia’s Yazeed Al-Rajhi took full advantage and looked to be heading for the stage win in his new Mini John Cooper Works Rally, but he was pipped at the post by Polish team-mate Jakub Przygonski. A delighted stage winner was upbeat after his achievement.
“It was a nice stage for us and Tom (Colsoul) made good navigation. The stage was tough with a lot of off-piste and we did it and we are really happy. For us, we need to learn more and more to be fast in the future, so opening the road now is okay. This will be good training for us.”
“It was a good start, but we had some problems with overheating of the car,” said Al-Rajhi. “We cut the engine and we lost time. We had one small mistake with the navigation, but second place is good for me and we have a good starting position for tomorrow.”
Overdrive Racing’s Erik van Loon and Toyota GAZOO’s Leeroy Poulter ruined a potential X-raid Mini 1-2-3 with third and fourth places and demoted Qatar’s Mohammed Abu Issa (who lost time with a costly puncture) to fifth in the third Mini. Al-Attiyah and Al-Qassimi hold sixth and seventh places.
After his crash in Abu Dhabi, the last thing Al-Attiyah needed was no power steering on his Toyota Hilux.
“I was really worried because I still have a pain. The steering rack has completely stopped. It was really difficult to make 190km without power steering. And then the gearbox lever was broken. Matthieu (Baumel) try to change himself, but it took time and we were stuck in third gear to the finish. But I am surprise to lose so little time.”
Al-Qassimi said: “My main problem was I lost a lot of time because I lost the track, maybe between four and five minutes in one place. At the end I had a slow puncture, but it was good on the sandy sections because I am used to this. The Peugeot is too big for the lines on the rocky stages. I am always outside the line on these stages.”
Sunderland, riding for the Red Bull KTM Factory Team, used his favourable starting position and confidence he has gained from two massive wins already this season to steal the initiative. He caught the riders in front and now holds an outright lead of 9min 32.9sec over Monster Energy Honda Team’s Paulo Gonçalves, although Sunderland’s starting position for Thursday’s stage should enable his rivals to reduce that gap.
Honda’s Kevin Benavides holds third, despite fuel pump issues on the road section after the stage, and Pablo Quintanilla of the Rockstar Energy Husqvarna Team is fourth. Overnight motorcycle leader Antoine Meo dropped around 26 minutes with navigational woes before PC1 on the day’s stage and slipped to seventh in the overall standings. Ride to Abu Dhabi’s Mohammed Al-Balooshi holds ninth place.
Sunderland said: “Obviously it’s always hard to have the first day in Qatar and to adjust the brain to start to think about a lot of navigation, especially after Abu Dhabi, where it is all open GPS. I pushed all day and managed to pass all the guys. We are here and safe and the bike was awesome. It was heavy for the hands. They are pretty destroyed after all the stones. It was a tough day. We will have to see how we go with the strategy.”
Second-placed Goncalves said, “I start the rally well. It was a really tough stage with difficult navigation and also some dangerous tracks. At the beginning I tried to keep my speed more or less safe but, after the refuelling, I start to go a little faster. I am happy to arrive with the second overall. The bike is okay. We have more than 1000kms still to go, so we don’t do any calculations. I take each day as it comes.”
Peruvian Alexis Hernandez also misread early route instructions on his quad, but managed to refocus to set the quickest time in the quad category and extend his outright lead to 6min 12.1sec over Poland’s Rafal Sonik. Dutchman Kees Koolen is third. Argentina’s Lucas Innocente was badly delayed on the opening stage, failed to complete the route on Wednesday and incurred massive time penalties.
Saudi Arabia’s Abdulmajeed Al-Khulaifi won the shorter non-FIM section on his Yamaha quad. On a stage that finished at PC2 for the national riders, Sultan Al-Masood was second.
Qatar’s Adel Abdulla broke a front suspension arm on his way to the fastest T2 time in the opening stage, but the Nissan Patrol driver was in excellent form on the first desert section and he reached Losail with a lead of 50.6 seconds in the popular support championship for series production cross-country vehicles. Abu Dhabi Racing’s Mansour Al-Helai holds second and series leader Yasir Saeidan is third.
Local Chevrolet Buggy driver Mohammed Al-Mannai won the day’s stage in the Qatar National Baja and leads the event by 7min 09.2sec from Mohammed Al-Meer. Saudi’s Ahmed Al-Shegawi is third.
Wednesday – as it happened
The real meat of the event began with a 334.08km section from Rawdat Rashed that wound its way around the west and south of Qatar to a finish near Sealine. Super special stage winner Antoine Meo opted to start from 15th with Walkner in 14th and Sunderland in 13th. It meant that the three factory KTM bikes were working together.
The unenviable task of running first on the road fell to Saudi quad rider Abdulmajeed Al-Khulaifi. Mohammed Al-Balooshi was the first of the leading riders on two wheels in fifth. The top 15 ran at three-minute intervals, but South African quad rider Martin Beyers did not take the start after his somersault in the water splash on Tuesday and Qatar’s Ahmed Al-Kuwari was also sidelined.
Czech Miroslav Zapletal was handed road opening duties in the cars with Leeroy Poulter and Yazeed Al-Rajhi following two and four minutes behind. Sheikh Khalid Al-Qassimi slotted into fourth and overnight leader Nasser Saleh Al-Attiyah was 10th. An overnight road closure caused the stage start to the delayed for around an hour.
Overnight quad leader Alexis Hernandez lost his way early on, as Sunderland used his starting position to his advantage to lead at PC1 from Quintanilla and Renet. Both Walkner dropped several minutes to his team-mate and Meo suffered his own navigational agony and dropped 26 minutes to Sunderland. Al-Attiyah edged into a small advantage over Al-Rajhi and Abu Issa in the cars. Thomas Bell was unable to start after technical issues on his Range Rover 5 Bowler and Yerden Shagirov, who had complained of gearbox issues on Tuesday, retired from the stage.
Al-Rajhi whittled Al-Attiyah’s advantage down to just 39 seconds at the second checkpoint, but the Qatari lost 10 minutes to the next time control point with power steering issues and Al-Rajhi held on to claim the second fastest time in his latest specification Mini after being pipped to the win by Przygonski.
Tomorrow (Thursday), the third stage of 353.02km starts close to the former bivouac at Sealine and runs south towards the Inland Sea before heading west and up the western coast of Qatar. Refuelling takes place at PC2, in Al-Galayel, and the stage finishes at Mekaines on the Salwa Road.
