A 10th victory in the Hashemite Kingdom and a 63rd in his FIA Middle East Rally Championship (MERC) career was never really in doubt once eventual runner-up Abdulaziz Al-Kuwari left the road on Friday afternoon, before clawing his way back from fifth to second place.
Al-Attiyah did enough in his Skoda Fabia R5 to win by a staggering margin of 18min 18.4sec.
The Qatari, who hardly seemed to break sweat during a dominant weekend, said: “It was important that I came here with a focus to win the rally and claim the maximum 39 points for winning both legs and the event.
“I was able to control the race from the very start and set my own pace. Whoever wants to compete outside of the World Championship needs to first beat Nasser Al-Attiyah in the Middle East!”
Two Jordanian drivers were involved in the fight to win MERC 2. Khaled Juma held all the aces at the start of the day, but Husam Salem returned with a vengeance and a rebuilt car and began to eat into his rival’s lead through the morning. Salem was closing fast on Juma when the latter’s Mitsubishi reached a real low point at the Baptism Site and spluttered to a halt in the water splash. The 17 minutes lost wrecked the local national championship’s podium dream.
But Husam lost five minutes in the penultimate stage before retiring and leaving the door open for Abdullah Al-Kuwari, with the Qatari duly confirming a 1-2-3 podium finish for his country. It was also the first all-Qatari podium outside Qatar in MERC history.
Khalid Al-Suwaidi overhauled Juma in the 17th stage to snatch fourth position after Salem’s late demise, while Juma managed to reach the finish in fifth after Kuwait’s Meshari Al-Thefiri withdrew three stages from the end with transmission issues.
Lebanon’s Rodolphe Asmar was sixth, Jordan’s Ihab Al-Shorafa finished seventh and Qatar’s Rashed Al-Nuami recovered from a second-stage crash to collect points for eighth overall. Only eight of the original 15 cars reached the end.
