Sheikh Khalid seals victory at Abu Dhabi Rally

Anthony Fernandes 08:38 18/10/2014
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  • Dominant victory: Sheikh Khalid Al Qassimi won all nine stages of the rally.

    Sheikh Khalid Al Qassimi regis­tered a dominant victory at the Abu Dhabi Rally yesterday, beating his brother Sheikh Abdullah by a mar­gin of three minutes 5.3 seconds with Qatar’s Abdullah Al Kuwari further nine minutes 11.9 seconds back in third place.

    Sheikh Khalid’s victory was all the more impressive because even though he had gone fastest in the super special the previous evening, the Abu Dhabi Racing boss was relegated to sixth in the pecking order after picking up a 30-second penalty.

    However, he encountered no such problems yesterday. Putting pedal to the metal, Sheikh Khalid stormed to victory on the 18.71km Ghatoot 1 opener in the morning, 25.9s ahead of Sheikh Abdullah and Khalifa Al Attiyah further back by one minute 11.9s in third.

    The second test, the 20.55km Al Jarf 1, went even better for the ADR driver, finishing 38.1s ahead of Sheikh Abdullah and Abdullah Al Kuwari dropping another one minute 09.1s to the leader.

    For the third special of the day, the 12.7km Al Maha 1 test, Sheikh Khalid eased off a bit to finish 16s and 36.3s ahead of Sheikh Abdul­lah and Abdullah Al Kuwari respec­tively.

    The 21.1km Al Taweelah 1 special, however, proved to be productive, with the Abu Dhabi native finishing 21.5s ahead of his brother and faster by 59s over the third-placed Abdul­lah Al Kuwari.

    Having completed the morning loop, Sheikh Khalid went into the mid-day service break a healthy one minute 20.5s ahead of Sheikh Abdullah and extended the gap to three minutes 48.3s over Abdullah Al Kuwari.

    After dispensing with the service break, Sheikh Khalid began a re-run of the loop where he had left off in the morning, storming to dominant victories on the final four tests.

    Just as in the morning, Sheikh Khalid once again dominated but again slowed down a bit on the re­turn Al Maha 2 stage where he was 16.2sec faster than his brother – nearly the same margin he recorded on the Al Maha 1 special.

    Fifteen cars had started the trial event yesterday morning, but by the end of the day, seven had fallen by the wayside and just eight cars managed to complete the rally.

    The six-car Abu Dhabi Racing team did well, with all cars finish­ing, with the exception of Juma Al Falasi who did not start yesterday after going ninth fastest the previ­ous day during the super special.

    Speaking after the presentation ceremony, Sheikh Khalid said: “It’s fantastic [the win]; the event was great. Getting one leg of the rally at Abu Dhabi was one of my goals and winning this event has been anoth­er success.

    “So these two achievements are great for me. Now I want to make next year’s event even better.

    “With my skills and experience, it was a good competition to compete in. The drivers did their best and I was controlling my pace. I drove fast in some sections, and I was kind of balancing the pace in others.”

    Asked if he was satisfied with the performance of his other five young Abu Dhabi Racing drivers, Sheikh Khalid added: “They are doing fan­tastic. They are doing really good. I am pleased with their pace, com­mitment, desire to improve and all the small things they want to learn.

    “If they improve from here, they can go on to drive in a world cham­pionship event, maybe enter a jun­ior programme. It depends on how they develop over time.”

    On whether Abu Dhabi was ready to host a leg of the World Rally Championship, the ADR boss said: “We are now thinking of raising the standard of the Middle East cham­pionship. There are still no plans [WRC] and no time frame.”

    Sheikh Khalid admitted that he does not have much interest in cir­cuit racing, because “as soon as you jump into being a rally driver, you don’t want to try anything else. I call it a step backwards.”

    Meanwhile, second-placed Sheikh Abdullah said: “It was a per­fect performance. I did my best but we had some early problems with the car. But we managed to recover as the day went on and finished on the podium.”

    And Abdullah Al Kuwari, who completed the podium in third, added: “It was a very good result.

    “It was a good performance and there were no problems and it was the first time that I finished third in this event.

    “There were no major difficul­ties, but with the strong field it was good to finish third.” 

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