Alkass Digital
Officials at the Qatar Motor and Motorcycle Federation (QMMF) have been forced to make some late tweaks and changes to the route for this weekend’s Qatar International Rally, round two of the 2023 FIA Middle East Rally Championship (MERC).
Heavy rain fell in the region throughout January and two and a half days of rain in recent days caused localised flooding and standing water in the northern Qatar deserts. As a result, several sections of rally route were inundated and modifications have been made to two individual special stages as a result.
Ras Laffan in the north will act as stages three and six on Friday and this has been shortened slightly to 15.44km, while Saturday’s Umm Birka special (SS10 and 13) will now run for 24.57km. Competitive distance is, therefore, reduced from 209.69km to 209.13km in a total route of 615.20km.
Low-lying fog has been prevalent in the mornings recently, but a couple of days of stable sunny weather are forecast leading up to the start of the rally. Then, however, slightly cooler and much windier conditions are expected for the weekend, especially for the two days of desert action on Friday and Saturday.
International rally stars, Mads Ostberg, Andreas Mikkelsen and Emil Lindholm, have now arrived in Doha and are preparing to see the stages, with the latter two competing here for the first time. Ostberg and Lindholm carried out a brief shakedown test with their SRT Skodas in the desert yesterday morning.
Lindholm said: “This is my first time here in Qatar and it is quite a new experience for me. I have never done rallying in similar conditions. It is a lot different from the Finnish conditions I am used to. We will try to do our best. The competition is, for sure, high with Nasser pushing hard and Mads and Andreas. It will be very interesting to see....”
Veteran Sadoon al-Kuwari is celebrating his 40th year competing in motor sport and has confirmed that the experienced Belgian co-driver Stephane Prevot will line up alongside him in a QMMF-backed Volkswagen Polo GTI.
The 54-year-old Belgian has competed in 178 WRC rallies with the likes of Bruno Thiry, François Duval, Chris Atkinson, Stephane Lefebvre and Henning Solberg and claimed 17 podium finishes. His last event in the WRC was in Sardinia last year although he competed with many of the factory teams after making his WRC debut at the 1989 Lombard RAC Rally in the UK.
Prevot previously rallied alongside Sadoon’s son Abdulaziz al-Kuwari in Kuwait, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Cyprus and Dubai during the 2010 FIA Middle East Rally Championship.
Defending regional rally champion Nasser Saleh al-Attiyah’s car arrived in Qatar directly from competing in the Sultanate of Oman at the end of January. The Volkswagen Polo GTI sustained a fair amount of damage during that fightback from a first-stage crash to third overall and Autotek Motorsport technicians arrived in Qatar slightly earlier than scheduled to carry out a full car rebuild at the service park in Lusail. The team carried out a small shakedown yesterday afternoon.
Today, international competitors from 14 nations carry out their reconnaissance of the desert special stages before select crews attend scrutineering checks at the Lusail Sports Arena in the evening. The event gets underway from the spectacular new location of Al Maha Island tomorrow evening from 7pm before the opening 3.27km super special fires the competitive action into life at the LCSC Karting Academy from 8pm.