Sunday 19 / May / 2024
MUSCAT: Defending Middle East Rally Championship (MERC) winner Oman’s Abdullah Al Rawahi and his Jordanian co-driver Ata Al Hmoud claimed a creditable third place in the opening race of the 2024 FIA-MERC season at the Qatar International Rally on Saturday.
The podium finish earned the Omani valuable MERC points as he aims to defend the title he shared last season with Nasser Al Attiyah.
France’s duo of Pierre-Louis Loubet and Loris Pascaud delivered a masterclass performance on their desert debut and overcame late damper issues and a couple of time penalties for contact with stage surround fencing to secure a memorable victory at the rally on Saturday.
Norway’s Mads Østberg and his Swedish co-driver Patrik Barth delivered a late charge over the afternoon loop of three short stages but missed out on the win by just 4.6 seconds.
Loubet became only the second non-Arab driver since Björn Waldegård in 1986 (Vojtĕch Štajf - 2018) to win the event outright. Sports Racing Technologies (SRT) duly earned a 1-2 finish with their Škoda Fabia RS Rally2s.
Al Rawahi and Al Hmoud proved that winning last year’s regional title was no fluke and they climbed from fifth to the bottom step of the podium in an Autotek-run Škoda.
In his remarks after the podium finish, Al Rawahi said: “This result is good for the championship and good points. Today was fantastic. We did some small mistakes yesterday [Friday] but we managed to get back from fifth to third. We pushed hard. It is a good result. The team worked really hard to give me a better car today and it worked.”
The result meant that no Qatari crew featured on the podium on their home event for the first time since the mid-1990s.
QMMF-backed Qatari Abdulaziz Al Kuwari and Irish co-driver James Fulton slipped back from third to finish fourth in their Sarrazin-supplied Volkswagen Polo GTi. Former event winner Nasser Khalifa Al Atya and Lebanon’s Ziad Chehab were a distant fifth in their Motortune Ford Fiesta MkII.
An overnight 30-minute time penalty obliterated Nasser Saleh Al Attiyah’s chance of winning his home event for an 18th time but the Qatari and his co-driver Giovanni Bernacchini pushed hard to climb through the tail end of the field.
Nasser made it as far as ninth overall but the finish in Lusail Boulevard was a bridge too far and the winner of three stages broke a damper and retired on the last stage to cap a miserable weekend.
Loubet said: “We can be very pleased with what we have done. It has been a great time, a great rally and I really enjoyed it. Thanks to everybody. We had a damper issue and we are happy to be at the end. It has been tough and very demanding.”
Østberg won nine of the 13 special stages. He added: “We had to do the afternoon with a completely different setting of the car. It was really hard. Pierre (Loubet) had a problem as well. It was dramatic for both of us. We had a good afternoon and we pushed as much as we could. It was another very enjoyable weekend.”
Al Attiyah said: “I was really disappointed with the decision (time penalty). It was completely wrong. We couldn’t really stop in the middle of the highway otherwise someone could hit you. We decided to move. I am really disappointed. It is not a professional way. We tried to make some good points. I did my best to jump at least two or three positions and to have a good time.”
The Jordanian crew of Shaker Jweihan and Mustafa Juma completely dominated the MERC2 category in their Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution X. They finished sixth overall and 9min 04.5sec ahead of their nearest production class rivals, Shadi Shaban and Samer Issa.
Emirati-based Indian Saneem Payyaakkal and his co-driver Musa Sherif have registered for the MERC and are competing in the new MERC4 category for two-wheel drive machines in their Ford Fiesta Rally4. They finished 14th, one place ahead of the QMMF-backed Khalid Al-Suwaidi and Ross Whittock, who had retired with electrical issues early on Friday and were too far back to mount a serious challenge on Saturday.
On Saturday, the only non-starters were Kuwait’s Jassim Al-Muqahwi, who had succumbed to differential woes on Friday, and Oman’s Zakariya Al Aamri, who failed to leave the service park. Lebanon’s Ahmad Khaled stopped on the road section to the opening stage.
In the afternoon stage on the final day, Al Rawahi delivered a stunning time that eclipsed the one set by Loubet and it was enough for last year’s joint regional champion to displace Al Kuwari and move into third place and strengthen his grip in the final Al Thakhira stage.
Al Rawahi and Al Kuwari held on to seal third and fourth but Al Attiyah’s charge through the field ended prematurely with a broken damper on his Volkswagen.
2024 Qatar International Rally [Top five]: 1 Pierre-Louis Loubet (FRA)/Loris Pascaud (FRA) Škoda Fabia RS 1hr 46min 37.9sec, 2 Mads Østberg (NOR)/Patrik Barth (SWE) Škoda Fabia RS 1hr 46min 42.5sec, 3. Abdullah Al Rawahi (OMN)/Ata Al Hmoud (JOR) Škoda Fabia Evo 1hr 48min 18.5sec, 4. Abdulaziz Al Kuwari (QAT)/James Fulton (IRL) Volkswagen Polo GTI 1hr 48min 50.2sec, 5. Nasser Khalifa Al Atya (QAT)/Ziad Chehab (LEB) Ford Fiesta Mk II 2hr 01min 12.4sec.
