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Briton Sam Sunderland, competing in the Qatar International Enduro for the first time, won both his races to make an impressive debut in the second round of the race, which concluded at Sealine yesterday. |
Altogether, 29 riders took part in the different categories, E1, E2 for bikes and quads in the event. Sunderland is a Honda factory rider for Cross Country Rallies and is also an official rider for the Honda Racing Team in the Dakar Rally.
In the first race of the day, Sunderland led the race from the beginning and gave no chance to the other competitors. He crossed the checkered flag with a gap of 3.18 from the second classified, UAE KTM rider Mohammed al-Balooshi. Both of them rode in the E2 category.
“It was my first race in Qatar and I enjoyed it thoroughly. It was a good race, the layout of the track was nice with some fast areas and nice mixture of terrain,” Sunderland said.
It was a creditable showing from al-Balooshi considering that he was not fully fit.
“There was no competition with Sunderland who was really fast, so I concentrated in staying second for the points,” he stated.
The third spot in the E2 category went to his UAE KTM teammate Saeed al-Shenqiti.
Germany’s Tycho Lieske, on a Yamaha, won the race in the E1 category. It was a tough win for him as Kuwaiti rider Mohamed Jaffar was leading the pack for the better part of the race but for a mistake in the final corner, which forced him to slip to fourth position.
“It was a tough race. I started fourth and managed to come second. I was lucky that Jaffar had a problem in the last corner,” Tycho said.
Le Roy Botha of South Africa and Abdullah al-Shatti completed the E1 podium.
Abdulla Nasser al-Ali from UAE topped the Quad category on a Suzuki. “I am happy, I had a hard battle with my teammate Obaid al-Ketbi but managed to come through first,” he said.
In the second E2 category race of the day, Sunderland led from the start till the end to make it a virtual one-man show. UAE riders al-Balooshi and al-Shenqiti finished second and third respectively.
Kuwait’s Jaffar didn’t make a mistake in the second E1 category race of the day and won rather easily. “I gave everything in the second race after my mistake in the first one. I hope to keep up the good work in the next round,” Jaffar said.
QMMF President Nasser Khalifa al-Attiya expressed his happiness with the level of the competition and the number of participants, and hoped that there would be more entries in the future rounds.
In the E1 standings, Abdulla al-Shatti was leading the pack with 90 points, followed by Mubarak al-Ali (72) and Barak al-Jasmi (70).
Mohamed Al Balooshi leads the E2 category with 91 points, followed by Moaah al-Ansari (65) and Saeed al-Shenqiti (58). Obaid al-Kitbe leads the Quad category with 50 points.