Sheikh Khalid Al Qassimi of Abu Dhabi Racing (ADR) lost his overnight lead after damaging the front right drive shaft of his Citroen DS3 RRC at the end of day two of Rally Oman, the trial event for possible inclusion in the 2015 FIA Middle East Rally Championship (MERC).
The Abu Dhabi native, who is spearheading a five-car ADR team in Oman, took a 6.8sec lead over Qatar’s Abdulaziz Al Kuwari at the end of the 3.54km Spectator Stage on Thursday’s opening night, with Khalifa Al Attiyah further back 15.7sec in third.
While Sharjah’s Sheikh Abdullah Al Qassimi was fourth fastest on Thursday night, ADR junior drivers Saeed Bintowq, Mohamed Al Mutawaa, Mansoor Belhelei and Juma Al Falasi finished in 5th, 8th, 11th and 12th respectively.
Due to heavy rain the previous night, SS2 was cancelled as the stage was waterlogged.
On special stage three, Sheikh Khalid got off to a good start but just 3km into the test his DS3 encountered stability issues.
Sheikh Khalid initially thought it might be a puncture, but during the mid-day service engineers nailed down the problem to a broken front right drive shaft.
This meant that Sheikh Khalid was pushed down to second, one minute 13.4sec behind new leader Abdulaziz Al Kuwari.
On re-start, Sheikh Khalid dropped 44.4sec on the fourth test while SS5 too was cancelled due to excess water on the stage.
However, on SS6, Sheikh Khalid dropped just 3.6sec to the leader, but on the final test he was13.7sec slower than Abdulaziz Al Kuwari.
The Abu Dhabi driver went into the overnight halt two minutes 22.6sec behind the leader with Sheikh Abdullah completing the top three going into the second day.
Sheikh Khalid said: “We had a great start but 3km into SS3 the car started acting strangely and we began losing traction and stability. Initially I thought it was a puncture but we then found out that it was a broken front right drive shaft.”
Meanwhile, racing in 2WD Citroen DS3 R3s, ADR junior drivers Al Mutawaa, Belhelei, Bintowq and Al Falasi locked out the 5th to 8th places at the end of yesterday.
Al Mutawaa, who finished the day first in class, said: “It’s a very challenging rally; I’m really learning a lot here in Oman. The stages are very technical with lots of blind crests.”
