LUSAIL (Qatar): Qatar’s five-time Dakar Rally winner Nasser Al Attiyah fought off a fierce first day challenge from Norwegian rival Mads Østberg to lead the Qatar International Rally (QIR) after seven special stages on Friday.
Al Attiyah won four of the day’s speed tests in his Autotek Volkswagen Polo GTI and overcame a lunchtime deficit of 4.2 seconds to take a 8.1-second advantage into the night halt in Lusail.
The 16-time QIR winner and his co-driver Mathieu Baumel stayed clear of trouble and tyre issues and will need to defend their advantage from first place on the road on Saturday.
“I am happy. We keep the same plan and tried to make no mistake and push in the afternoon. We did a good job. We need to keep this pace tomorrow,” said Al Attiyah.
“To race the top drivers in Europe, you need to have a good pace. This is a new race for Andreas and Emil, but Mads has been here before. Tomorrow, it will be longer and a little bit more rough.”
Østberg teamed up with Sweden’s Patrik Barth and was able to call upon the experience he gained last year.
He won stages three and four but punctured in the first speed test after the regroup and was somewhat disappointed to be so far behind after the second loop.
“The plan this year was not to lead after day one but I would like to be closer. I didn’t purposely give him eight seconds. But we had a puncture on the first stage (SS5) after service and we, maybe, dropped 10 seconds. It was not ideal. On the last, he was very fast,” said Østberg.
The Norwegian pairing of Andreas Mikkelsen and Torstein Eriksen soon realised that high-speed desert rallying was not going to be a walk in the park, although a third stage puncture and a lack of confidence with the tyres hindered the 2021 FIA WRC2 champion. He ended the day in third.
Veteran Nasser Khalifa Al-Atya held seventh with Italy’s Giovanni Bernacchini in his new Ford Fiesta R5.
The eighth-placed multiple MERC2 champion Meshari Al-Thefiri and his Qatari co-driver Nasser Al-Kuwari dominated the MERC2 category again and returned to Lusail with a commanding 4min 04.5sec lead over fellow Kuwaiti Yousef Al-Dhafeeri and his Lebanese co-driver Carlos Hanna.
