2016 Spring Rally Comparisons & Statistics

April 11, 2016 – The 2016 Spring Rally was not the thriller we were expecting with domination appearing in almost every category thanks to a variety of factors. Let’s a look at the times produced by the top drivers in every category and compare how they fared against one another.

As expected, Abdo Feghali dominated the overall results, setting the fastest time in every single stage of the rally onboard his Fiesta R5, with Tamer Ghandour and Rodolphe Asmar unable to catch up, mainly because the former was driving an inferior Mitsubishi Evo X R4, while the latter lacks the experience. However, the main surprise here is Roger Feghali, who on some occasions matched Ghandour (SS2 & SS8) and went faster than Asmar (SS5, SS7 & SS8) in a front-wheel drive Citroen, showing why he’s a 12-time rally champion. Group N winner Rodrigue Rahi could’ve been much closer to, and maybe ahead of, Roger if it weren’t for a tyre puncture in the last stage.

The gap between Abdo and Tamer was 1 minute 23 seconds at the end of the rally, with Rodolphe a further 37 seconds behind. Roger ended up just 8 seconds behind Rodolphe and kept Rodrigue 16 seconds clear.

The stage times show that Rodrigue Rahi had it easy in Group N as he was the fastest in every stage. Rahi’s main competitor should’ve been Eddy Abou Karam, who was his only match in several stages, but Eddy’s issues, including a loose engine cover which popped open and a broken differential, meant that he dropped out of contention, leaving his TGRS teammate alone at the top. Michel Slaiby and Ziad Feghali were evenly matched, but a brake failure for Ziad cost him almost a full minute in SS2 and he eventually settled for 3rd in class after fixing the issue. Raafat Al Mohtar and Nabil Abdelhak couldn’t keep up with the front runners, and the latter slowed down in the last couple of stage due to engine problems. There’s also Rabih Ayoub, who went off the road in the opening stage and retired; Rabih could’ve made things more interesting if it weren’t for that mistake.

Rodrigue’s dominance is evident by the gap to his closest rival, Michel Slaiby, who ended up almost 1 minute 50 seconds behind, while Ziad Feghali rounded out the podium, but was over 2 minutes off Rodrigue’s pace.

Much like the RC2 and Group N classes, the RC3 category witnessed domination by a single driver. Roger Feghali in the Citroen DS3 R3 was untouchable throughout the event, setting the bar very high for his competitors, while Henry Massaad in the Renault Clio R3T consistently proved that he’s best of the rest. The only competition was between DS3 R3 drivers Bassel Abu Hamdan and Rony Kanaan for third place, with the two of them trading blows, but it was Abu Hamdan who stole the position in the end. Walid Chlink had a lonely race for fifth place in the inferior Clio R3.

Roger’s winning margin was over 2 minutes, with Henry Massaad enjoying a similarly comfortable gap – 1 minute 35 seconds – to third-placed Bassel Abu Hamdan who finished just 7 seconds ahead of Kanaan.

Patrick Njeim was on fire in the 2016 Spring Rally, taking large chunks of time off his rival Majed Khoury, and it looked like he was on course to score a class win, but his Peugeot 208 R2 failed him in SS5 – a potential fuel pump issue, which allowed Majed Khoury in the Skoda Fabia R2 to cruise to victory. Patrick was 40 seconds ahead of Majed before reaching SS5, where all the advantage was lost.

In RC5, Matthias Njeim had no competitors. Nevertheless, the young karting champion achieved his target: finishing the rally. His pace was also impressive, nearly matching his brother’s time from last year. Matthias’ fastest time in Nahr Ibrahim was 11 minutes 49 seconds, 5 seconds slower than Patrick’s fastest time in the 2015 event.

On a side note, the tables show how most of the competitors were able to improve their times as the day progressed, and that is largely due to sunny and warm conditions in the afternoon, compared to overcast conditions with slippery rain dust in the morning.

Another interesting observation is the fastest time set by Abdo Feghali in the 15.42-km Nahr Ibrahim stage (SS1, SS4 and SS7), 9 minutes 16 seconds, which is 14 seconds quicker than what his brother Roger managed last year on the same stage in the same car in the 2015 Rally of Lebanon. However, Abdo’s time this year is 6 seconds slower than the time that Roger posted on the same stage in the 2015 Spring Rally onboard the Mitsubishi Lancer Evo X R4.

In the end, 23 of the 25 cars finished the event – a 92% success rate. In comparison, there were 17 classified cars out of 26 in the 2015 Spring Rally, which translates to 9 retirements – a 65% success rate.