Nasser Al-Attiyah is the champion of the Qatar Rally again after a strong struggle with Ostberg

Today, Saturday, driver Nasser Saleh Al-Attiyah won the Qatar International Rally title, the second round of the Middle East Rally Championship for the current year, for the 17th time in his career.

Champion Al-Attiyah raised his tally of victories in the Middle East Championship, which he holds the title 18 times, to 83 victories, reinforcing his record.

Al-Attiyah took the first place aboard the Volkswagen Polo GTI, with a total time of 1.44.07.4 hours, 12.2 seconds ahead of the Norwegian Mads Ostberg (Skoda Fabia Rally 2 Evo), who made a slight mistake in the last breath struggle, which lasted until the last kilometers of the stage. the 13th.

Al-Attiyah was not able to advance by a large margin from Ostberg during two days of excitement and enthusiasm, during which the identity of the winner was not decided, as the Qatari and the Norwegian presented high speeds in the wind-blown speed stages.

As happened last year, the duo exchanged wins in the special stages, in what looked like a game of wheelchairs, in an enthusiastic scene, to which the flying sand and scattered dust added an enthusiastic atmosphere.

Al-Attiyah retained his country’s rally title for the fourth consecutive year after 2019, 2021 and 2022, knowing that the 2020 edition was not held due to the Corona virus pandemic, while he won the 2004 edition when the rally was not included in the Middle East Championship.

For his part, his French navigator Mathieu Baumel, who resides in Andorra, raised the number of his victories in Qatar to 6, all of which he achieved in the hot seat alongside Al-Attiyah in 2015, 2016, 2019, 2021, 2022 and 2023. He also brought his number of regional championship victories to 31.

Al-Attiyah, a five-time Dakar champion, ecstatic with his victory, told the organizing committee: “I am happy with the victory, what a great weekend. Winning 17 times is not easy and I am very proud of it. It was a hard-fought battle with Mads Ostberg this week. “I didn’t have anything to lose at the start of the last stage. We were driving fast and pressing everywhere.”

The Norwegian duo, Andreas Mikkelsen and his navigator, Torsten Eriksen, who participated for the first time in the Qatar Rally, finished third without being able to compete with the lead pair, knowing that the winner of the WRC2 World Rally Championship title in 2021 achieved the fastest time in the exhibition stage on Asphalt tracks, and another stage on the gravel tracks, on his way to taking the last step on the podium behind the wheel of a “Škoda” prepared by the “SRT” team.

Finnish Emil Lindholm, with his navigator Rita Hamalainen, arrived fourth after adapting from stage to stage with the nature of the stages, while Qatari Abdulaziz Al Kuwari, supported by the Qatar Motor and Motorcycle Federation, achieved a remarkable result by arriving fifth with his Irish navigator Lorcan Moore.