Al-Attiyah clinches record-breaking 8th win in Oman

Nasser Saleh al-Attiyah and his new Spanish co-driver Candido Carrera cruised to an emphatic 6min 13.6sec victory in the 28th Oman International Rally on Saturday.The Qatari secured a record-breaking eighth win in the Sultanate in his Skoda Fabia RS and a staggering 87th career victory in the FIA Middle East Rally Championship (MERC) with a seventh different co-driver. He won nine of the 13 special stages, including the Power Stage finale.Al-Attiyah said: "It has been a very good weekend. I am still tired from Dakar. We enjoyed this a lot, the new location for Oman Rally. New co-driver and we have a new car this year and it has been a good start. We decide to go flat out on the Power Stage and we had a really good time. I am happy.”His co-driver Candido Carrera said: "The first time here. The stages were very nice and I had a nice feeling. It was the first time with Nasser, so we went going step-by-step with the pace notes and the speed. We think we did a very good job. It is a really good rally. For me, the stages are completely different (to the WRC). The surface is harder and there are no big references between notes. In Acropolis and Sardinia, it is easier to see the road. But I like it a lot.”Rakan al-Rashed returned to the series in impressive style by taking second overall with Portugal’s Hugo Magalhaes in a Toyota GR Yaris Rally 2. The Saudi overcame a couple of flat tyres on Friday’s opening stage and measured his pace well once Qatar’s Abdulaziz al-Kuwari had blotted his copybook on the last stage of the first day.Qatar’s Nasser Khalifa al-Attiyah and his Lebanese co-driver Ziad Chehab went largely under the radar to deliver a polished performance to snatch the final place on the podium in their Ford Fiesta. The result marked a perfect start to the veteran’s quest to win the maiden MERC Masters Cup.Defending regional champion Abdulaziz al-Kuwari overcame a seventh stage accident and the resultant 10-minute penalty to retain third at the start of the final day in his QMMF-backed Citroen C3. But the luckless Qatari ground to a halt with suspension issues on the penultimate stage. Irishman Lorcan Moore performed well on the pace notes.Al-Kuwari’s cruel fate lifted Rashid al-Muhannadi and Gary Mcelhinney into fourth place in the new Peugeot 208 Rally 4. They suffered late drama of their own when the car got stuck in the regrouping zone before the final stage and an attempt to pull it clear resulted in extensive damage to the front end.Jordan’s Shadi Shaban and Samer Issa secured a fine fifth place in their Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution IX. The Subaru Impreza crew of Abdullah al-Zubair and Taha al-Zadjali did the host nation proud with sixth and maximum points in MERC2.Saudi Arabia’s Ibrahim al-Muhanna (Can-Am) finished seventh and Abdullah al-Rawahi and Ata al-Hmoud benefited from four fastest times and late bad luck for some rivals to lift themselves into an unlikely eighth in the second Autotek Skoda after a cruel retirement on the first stage on Friday morning.Shadi El-Fakih (Renault), Yosra Jazzar (Can-Am) and Zakariya al-Aamri (Subaru) rounded off the FIA finishers in ninth, 10th and 11th positions after India’s Saneem Payyakkal and Musa Sherif stopped in the penultimate stage.All eyes now turn to the second round of the MERC, the Qatar International Rally, which will take place from February 6 to 8.