Qatar’s Nasser Saleh al-Attiyah (right) and co-driver Mathieu Baumel celebrate their win in the Sealine Cross-Country Rally yesterday.
By Sports Reporter/Sealine
Qatar’s Nasser Saleh al-Attiyah, Spain’s Marc Coma and Poland’s Rafal Sonik each confirmed their third victories at the Sealine Cross-Country Rally in four years in the car, motorcycle and quad categories yesterday.
Victories on the final stage of the punishing five-day event fell to Reinaldo Varela, Joan Barreda Bort and Mohamed Abu Issa, but there was no stopping the 2015 Dakar Rally winners, al-Attiyah, Coma and Sonik, and they each managed their pace to perfection over the closing 381.89km of competition to record victories by the respective margins of 27min 53sec, 4min 40sec and 8hr 06min 06sec.
Al-Attiyah won three of the five stages in the car category and, aside from a plethora of flat tyres, the Qatari continued his remarkable run of victories this season. His exclusion from the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge aside, the Red Bull maestro has now won five of his last six rallies on three continents in four different championships with French co-driver Matthieu Baumel.
“It was a tough race, it was really long, not like last year,” said al-Attiyah. “We were leading from the beginning and it was a great week for us. We appealed against the decision in Abu Dhabi and we wait for the outcome of that, but we will go to all the races in case we do not get the 60 points back for that.”
Defending FIA World Cup champion, Vladimir Vasilyev, continues to top the FIA World Cup points’ standings after finishing second overall in his X-raid Mini All4 Racing. Brazilian Reinaldo Varela finished third in an Overdrive Toyota Hilux, despite a total of nine punctures during the week, Czech privateer Miroslav Zapletal was fourth and Poland’s Marek Dabrowski finished fifth in the second of the Belgian-built Toyotas.
Saudi Arabia’s Yazeed al-Rajhi is one of the most improved drivers in the world this year but he lost his chance of leaping into second position in the championship standings after he and German co-driver Timo Gottschalk suffered a broken drive shaft with their Toyota Hilux over the final kilometres and got stuck in the sand dunes.
Coma, riding for the Red Bull KTM Factory Team, won only one of the five stages, but the master tactician coped with the intense heat and remained focused for the complex navigation to record his second win in four weeks and extend his advantage in the FIM Cross-Country Rallies World Championship after two rounds.
“I am happy,” said Coma. “It was a tough race, one of the toughest we do in the World Championship. We had a high rhythm all rally and all the guys pushed very hard. It was a nice fight. We have started the season well, with the Dakar and Abu Dhabi and now Qatar. Here, especially, it is a victory for the KTM team. We have the same goal, but one KTM is winning and all the riders are working for that.”
Team HRC’s Joan Barreda Bort and Paulo Goncalves started the final stage separated by just 32 seconds and second overall swapped during the course of the last special. But Barreda Bort hit back over the closing kilometres to seal the stage win and ensure that he finished 4min 40sec behind Coma. Goncalves was third overall, Spain’s Jordi Viladoms was fourth by one second and his KTM team-mates Pablo Quintanilla, Sam Sunderland and Matthias Walkner finished fifth, sixth and seventh overall.
Barreda Bort said: “I feel really good about my job and my navigation. But I finish second with a really good race. Something is wrong, no? I think the rules are complete stupid, because you can decide the race here in the bivouac and this is not nice. But, after the mechanical problem on the Dakar and Abu Dhabi, it’s a good feeling to be back.”
The quad contest was settled on Thursday afternoon when Abu Issa struck a rock, his Honda TRX shed a wheel and he incurred a fistful of time penalties. This put daylight between him and the defending Dakar champion Rafal Sonik and the Pole stayed out of trouble over the closing kilometres to reach the finish well clear of stage winner Abu Issa to claim the top spot in the FIM quad series points’ standings after round two. Poland’s gritty Kamil Wisniewski was third on a Yamaha Raptor. Sonik even found time to stop and lend fuel to another rider.
Eighth-placed Russian Maxim Kirpliev claimed victory in the T2 category at the wheel of his Toyota LC200. T3 glory fell to the 10th-placed Frenchman Eric Mozas in a Polaris RZR 1000.
This year’s Sealine Cross-Country Rally was organised by the Qatar Motor and Motorcycle Federation (QMMF) with support from GAC and the Salam International Group.
Below Pictures:
1. Spanish rider Marc Coma celebrates his win alongside QMMF president Nasser Khalifa al-Attiyah.
2. Qatari quad rider Mohamed Abu Issa (left) was second in the overall standings behind Poland’s Rafal Sonik (centre). Poland’s Kamil Wisniewski was third.
3. QMMF president Nasser Khalifa al-Attiyah (right) hands over the winner’s trophy to Qatari driver Nasser Saleh al-Attiyah.
