2013 Jordan International Rally, the third round of the FIA Middle East Rally Championship gets underway with a ceremonial start on Thursday night in Amman. Jordan Motorsport has attracted 31 entrants from eight countries for what has become the most popular event in the regional calendar.
Al-Attiyah is the defending regional champion and will also be hoping to retain the Jordan Rally title he secured last October at the Dead Sea. The Qatari has a 14-point lead in the series after securing wins in both Qatar and Kuwait and a seventh win in Jordan would give the Ford driver a 48th regional rally win and set him well on the road to a ninth MERC title, but the participation of the Lebanese driver Roger Feghali will make Al Attiyah’s hopes difficult to achieve.
Al-Attiyah and Feghali were the main victory contenders last year; but Feghali’s campaign got off to a wrong start when he received a 10-second penalty for jumping the start, which cost him dearly; the Lebanese driver faced further difficulties when his Fiesta’s trunk stuck open. Feghali didn’t quite give up, and resumed pressure on his Qatari rival by going quickest in five of the sixteen special stages to ultimately finish the event in second place, 34 seconds down on Al-Attiyah.
Feghali will try to put last year’s woes behind him and score his first ever Jordan Rally victory this weekend, but with competitors such as Nasser Al-Attiyah, Khalid Al-Qassimi and Abdulaziz Al-Kuwari, it proves to be an extremely tough task for the 10-times Rally of Lebanon victor.
Abudlaziz Al-Kuwari, who recently got back from en emphatic Rally Argentina win in the WRC2 category, will also be setting his sights on the top spot, and he won’t simply let Al-Attiyah and Feghali get away with it this time. Al-Kuwari will tackle the Rally on a Ford Fiesta S2000.
The event kicks off at 5:00 PM on Thursday night, with all 31 drivers expected at the start line (11 drivers from Jordan, four from Qatar, seven from UAE, three from Lebanon, two from Kuwait and one from Turkey, Saudi Arabia as well as Italy). Drivers will cover 16 timed special stages accounting to 256.64 kilometers of the 764.62-kilometer total distance.