The win was never in doubt as the 11-time FIA Middle East rally champion reached the finish in Fintas yesterday with a winning margin of 11min 24.9sec.
He and French navigator Matthieu Baumel controlled their pace at the three-day rally from start-tofinish to deliver yet another faultless team performance, a record 62nd MERC rally win for the driver and an 11th for his navigator.
“It was important that I won here and collected the maximum points, but I wasn’t really pushed on this rally,” said Al-Attiyah. “I would like to see my rivals come back on the next rallies. The car was fantastic and we managed to win every stage on an event that I enjoy very much.”
Newly-crowned Kuwaiti national champion Meshari Al-Thefiri, whose father Ahmed won the event before it became a round of the series way back in 1981, capped a memorable weekend with second overall and outright victory in the hard-fought MERC 2 category in his Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution X.