Al-Attiyah in struggle to make it 10 Qatar wins

27th January 2012

By Giles Wade

Nasser Al-Attiyah faces a tall order in his bid to make it 10 successive victories on the Qatar International Rally after a troubled opening day to this year’s event in his Kronos Racing Peugeot 207 Super 2000.

Al-Attiyah, the reigning Middle East champion, led at the halfway point on the back of two stage wins only for a front suspension strut to puncture a top mounting. When he was unable to change a deflated tyre prior to stage six due to worsening technical problems he was forced to retire for the day.

The Qatari will restart under SupeRally rules on Saturday several minutes behind surprise leader and countryman Abdulaziz Al-Kuwari, who has overcome differential problems in his Tok Sport Super 2000-specification Mini to hold top spot.

“Now we have to be clever,” said Al-Kuwari. “Nasser is a long way behind and will push very hard. The win is there in the distance on the radar, but there is still a lot of rallying to go."

Al-Attiyah’s co-driver Giovanni Bernacchini said: “We had a flat tyre at the start of [stage] five and stopped to change it. We undid all the nuts but the tyre rubber was stuck in the spring and, even with a hammer, we could not get the rubber out of the suspension. We wasted at least five minutes and decided to finish the stage with the puncture. Then we damaged the front of the car and the suspension."

Al-Kuwari heads Lebanese Mitsubishi Lancer driver Nick Georgiou by 2m38.1s. Burcu Cetinkaya is third overall in another Lancer.

Saturday’s leg consists of a further six stages with the first getting underway at 0848hrs local time.