Saudi trio sets early pace at Riyadh Rally

RIYADH: Saudi Arabia’s Yazeed Al Rajhi, Sufyan Al Omar and Sultan Al Masoud led their respective car, motorcycle and quad categories after the opening Toyota super special stage at the Riyadh Rally, round four of the Saudi Toyota Desert Rally Championship, on Thursday afternoon.

Rajhi and Ulster co-driver Michael Orr opened their account with the fastest time of 2min 20.6sec for the four-kilometre stage and that put the Toyota Hilux crew 17.8 seconds quicker than Yasir Seaidan in his new MINI JCW Buggy. The current leader of the Saudi Toyota Desert rally series finished the stage in fifth position.

Dakar legend Stephane Peterhansel was forced to switch co-drivers at the 11th hour after his wife Andrea failed a stringent pre-race medical check in Germany. Her place in one of two X–raid Buggies was taken by Portugal’s Paulo Fiuza. The Frenchman carded a time of 2min 28.9sec to hold third.

As Peterhansel explained: “Right after the press conference last week in Paris, we had our yearly X-raid medical check. As there was not so much time left until the rally in Saudi Arabia we, X-raid and the doctor, decided to wait for the results and evaluations before Andrea gets back in a rally car. I have known Paulo for a long time through X-raid. We also know each other from the X-raid team trainings and he knows the terrain in Saudi Arabia from past events.”

Czech driver Miroslav Zapletal completed the stage in second place in his self-designed Ford F-150 Evo, 6.7 seconds behind leader Rajhi. ED Racing’s Essa Dossari was fourth and Ahmed Al Qashimi rounded off the top six. Reda Al Shammeri led the T2 section for series-production cross-country vehicles by just 1.5 seconds from Yousef Al Suwaidi.

Shaker Al Tuwaijry topped the times in T3 in his Can-am and Saleh Al-saif led the NUTV category by 2.9 seconds in his Can-am Maverick X3 from Yousef Al Dhaif. Majed Al Tuwaijri and Khalil Al Tuwaijri tied to round off the top three.