· Bad luck for Abu Issa
Jakub Przygonski (POL) and Tom Colsoul (BEL) continue their streak of success with their MINI ALL4 Racing. After having finished runner-up in Qatar’s Cross Country Rally, the young Pole repeated this feat in the Rally Kazakhstan. Meanwhile, the pairings Yazeed Al-Rajhi (KSA) / Timo Gottschalk (GER) in the MINI John Cooper Works Rally and Mohamed Abu Issa (QAT) / Xavier Panseri (FRA) in another MINI ALL4 Racing had to cope with a lot of bad luck. They finished 11th and 14th respectively.
Przygonski started into the event with a stage win and also secured top positions in the other stages. Throughout the rally he succeeded in keeping the distance to Qatar’s Nasser Al-Attiyah under control and in the end, he finished eight minutes behind the winner.
“The event ran really fine for us,” Przygonski beamed. “We pushed right from the start to the finish line. We had a nice battle with Nasser. We really like the landscape and the rally. It was a good mix of dunes, fast sections and demanding navigation.”
For the pairings Al-Rajhi / Gottschalk and Abu Issa / Panseri, however, the rally at the Caspian Sea didn’t run as they had hoped it would. Due to a really hard landing following a jump in stage one, a rear-wheel suspension of Al-Rajhi’s vehicle broke and although he could continue on the following day, his hopes for securing a top result were over. But on the following days the Saudi demonstrated what could have been possible and celebrated three stage wins! Meanwhile, it was a rally to forget for Abu Issa. Due to several problems, the driver from Qatar lost time again and again. “We had our dose of drama in this rally,” said Abu Issa, “But Xavier and I learned a lot. The navigation was extremely demanding and I was driving on terrain that was new to me. We are happy, it’s a great satisfaction to finish this rally.”
“We are delighted that we finished the rally but of course we didn’t secure the result we came here for,” said Al-Rajhi. “But we won three of the six stages, thus demonstrating that we are able to go really fast. We learned a lot, in particular for the Silk Way Rally. We think that the first stages will be held on a similar terrain. It was a great rally with fantastic routes and beautiful landscapes.”
