Al-Attiyah Storms To 18Th Jordan Rally Victory

Doha, Qatar: Nasser Saleh Al-Attiyah and Candido Carrera cruised to a comfortable victory at the Jordan Rally yesterday.

The Autotek Motorsport Škoda Fabia RS driver won each of the dozen special stages in the Dead Sea and Jordan Valley areas to repeat a clean sweep of stage wins that he last achieved in 2016. On that occasion, 19 speed test wins earned the 20-time FIA Middle East Rally Championship (MERC) victory by 18 minutes.

The winning margin this time on his record-breaking 18th victory in Jordan was 3min 53.7sec and it moved him into a slender championship lead.

The Qatari now has 92 MERC career rally wins, with Carrera picking up win number seven in his second season with Al-Attiyah. That puts the Spaniard on seven MERC wins, equal with rally organiser and former co-driver Khaled Zakaria in the MERC's history books.

After breaking Abdullah Al-Rawahi's stage record for the Baptism stage on Friday, Al-Attiyah beat his own record in Suwayma by three seconds on Saturday morning.

Following his dominant performance, he said:“Absolutely, it was a good weekend. I was really surprised. We did the same stages as last year and we were even faster. It means that our set-up is really good. We worked very hard this weekend to get the maximum points. It's nice to win all 12 stages. There was pressure there but we need to enjoy this victory.”

Oman's Abdullah Al-Rawahi and Ata Al-Hmoud were never troubled for the runner-up spot in their Oman Rally Team Škoda Fabia RS. The decision to run medium compound tyres for the first three stages on Friday was a mistake and Al-Rawahi did pick up a puncture on the first pass through Rawda on Saturday. Otherwise, he shadowed Al-Attiyah from the start to pick up valuable points for second place.

Saudi Arabia's Hamza Bakhashab is in the middle of a first full season of MERC rallies in a Toyota GR Yaris Rally2 supported by Jameel Motorsport. He and Irish co-driver Lorcan Moore overcame a five-minute time loss with a double puncture on stage nine to round off the podium places and remain firmly in contention for a title challenge.

Saudi Arabia's Bassel Abu Hamdan got to grips with his Volkswagen Polo as the event progressed and looked set to finish fourth overall with Firas Elias until the final Power Stage at Rawda. He lost three valuable minutes in the special with damaged front left suspension and was pipped to fourth place by the Škoda crew of Sheikh Bader Al-Fayez and Joseph Matar. The difference was just 3.1 seconds.

Shaker Jweihan's target of a third successive haul of maximum MERC2 points ended after the eighth stage.

Comfortably ahead of all his class rivals, the Jordanian had been embroiled in a battle with Abu Hamdan for fourth overall with Mustafa Juma in a Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution X. But he retired before the first pass through Rawda after the pair had traded positions on the first two speed tests.

The Jordanian duo of Shadi Shaban and Samer Issa enjoyed a strong finish to their event and climbed through the field to seal sixth place in their Mitsubishi. Mohammed Al-Shorafa and Samer Sfeir guided their Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX to seventh.

Nasser Khalifa Al-Atya and Ziad Chehab overcame an opening day fraught with brake issues and settled into a better pace over the final day in a Motortune Ford Fiesta. As rivals hit trouble, the current MERC Master Driver front-runner kept going and was rewarded with eighth overall.

Palestine's Hamadeh Uda and Zeid Abu Zeid dropped a couple of minutes on Saturday's opening stage in a Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution X and slipped two places. They recovered well to hold seventh before another costly time delay on the final stage pushed them down to ninth. Uda topped the NR4 class section, although neither Shaban nor Uda were registered for MERC points.

The Omani duo of Zakariya Al-Aamri and Mohammed Al-Mazroui earned maximum MERC2 points for rounding off the top 10 in a Subaru Impreza.

Action resumes in the regional rally series in Lebanon on September 11.

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