FIA Middle East Rally Championship: Nasser Al Attiyah reigns supreme in Jordan

The Qatari ace 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.

Qatari ace Nasser Saleh Al Attiyah and and his Spanish co-driver Candido Carrera cruised to a comfortable victory at Jordan Rally, round three of the FIA Middle East Rally Championship (MERC).

The Autotek Motorsport Skoda 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 18^th victory in Jordan was 3min 53.7sec and it moved him into a slender championship lead.

The six-time Dakar Rally champion now has 92 MERC career rally wins, with Carrera picking up win number seven in his second season with Nasser. 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, Nasser beat his own record in Suwayma by three seconds.

Following his dominant performance, Nasser 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 Skoda Fabia RS.

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.

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 Skoda crew of Sheikh Bader Al-Fayez and Joseph Matar. The difference was just 3.1sec.

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 Attiyah 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 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.

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.

 (With MERC Media inputs)