Al-Attiyah tipped for epic Dakar comeback

8th January 2012

World Rally Championship star Nasser Al-Attiyah is still capable of taking back to back Dakar Rally victories despite being 43 minutes off the lead halfway through the 2012 event - according to his team boss Robby Gordon.

Al-Attiyah's bid to repeat his 2011 Dakar win struck a series of early blows as various issues with his Hummer delayed him during the first week of stages. But a blistering win on Saturday's Copiapo to Copiapo stage buoyed the team ahead of next week's run to the finish.

Although Al-Attiyah is 42m54s down on leader Stephane Peterhansel and in sixth overall at present, Gordon - who holds third in his own car - reckons his team-mate is favourite for victory with seven more stages to go.

His confidence was boosted by the Hummer's one-two on yesterday's stage, where Al-Attiyah was quickest by over seven minutes.

"It is obvious that our car is extremely fast on this type of terrain," said Gordon. "It is easy to see that it was designed for this sort of stages. We have also changed a lot of things, including the transmission, and it is now a fearsome machine.

"In fact, I am sure Nasser is going to win this thing. Okay, the others are still ahead, but I think we are in a very good position for the rest of the rally."

Al-Attiyah is also still optimistic he can win - though he admitted every day for the rest of the rally would have to be as good as Saturday.

"Our objective is to claw back seven or eight minutes every day," he said. And today we did it perfectly. We will do our best to repeat this performance in all stages from Monday onwards, or even try to do better.

"At any rate, we have no other choice if we still want to win the Dakar."

After Dakar, Al-Attiyah will start the biggest season of his WRC career so far, having secured a works-supplied Citroen DS3 WRC for his 2012 campaign.