Al Attiyah takes comfortable lead into the final day-of-qatar-rally

Bengaluru/Doha, February 26: Nasser Saleh Al Attiyah continued his relentless push towards a sixth victory in the Manateq Qatar Cross-Country Rally, the opening round of 2019 FIA World Cup for Cross Country Rallies, with another fastest time on one two selective sections on the penultimate day in the deserts of Qatar.

That enabled the Toyota driver and his French co-driver Matthieu Baumel to take an overall lead of 12min 33sec into the final stage.

Yazeed Al Rajhi and Dirk von Zitzewitz began the day 9min 52sec behind their team-mates, but lost further ground through the opening stage with a series of three flat tyres, although the Saudi/German pairing did strengthen their hold on second place to 3min 14sec over Jakub Przygonski and his German navigator Timo Gottschalk, the Pole driving the first of two X-raid MINI John Cooper Works Rally cars.

First stage win

Al Attiyah's fastest time on the first of the day's two stages enabled the Qatari to extend his advantage over Al-Rajhi to 14min 35sec,.

But that advantage was pegged back by Al Rajhi in the shorter second test when the Saudi carded his first stage win of the campaign.

Przygonski's strategy

Defending champion Przygonski is trying to catch up in the standings.

The driver from Poland summed up his strategy, "In 80km, we got three punctures and I lost a lot of confidence. Without three tyres it is hard to drive. We were trying to survive after that. One stone and we would have stopped our race. Without four wheels we could not continue. We need to push and figure a good strategy."

Fastest time

After their third stage problems, Oman's Abdullah Al Zubair and Qatar's Adel Abdulla were back in a strong pace on day four.

The latter set the fastest time on both day's stages, but it was scant consolation for the disappointment of the last two days.

Ceremonial finish

Two selective sections were arranged on leg four, split by a road liaison section of 56.39km where service was not permitted.

The final selective section of the event runs for just 263.8km. Finishers then return to the bivouac at the Lusail Sports Arena to prepare for the ceremonial finish at The Pearl Qatar.