Competition starts on Wednesday morning at the Hail Cross-Country Rally, the final round of the FIA World Cup for Cross-Country Rallies.
Qatar’s Nasser Saleh Al-Attiyah and Argentina’s Lucio Alvarez both drive V8 Toyota Hiluxes built with Toyota Gazoo Racing and Overdrive Racing, and will fight it out for the 2021 FIA World Cup Drivers’ title.
To win his first FIA World Cup, Alvarez must overturn a 28-point deficit. He needs to win the rally outright and score at least three extra bonus points for daily stage results, and even then Al-Attiyah would have to finish lower than eighth without scoring a single bonus point.
I won in Hail back in 2008 and 2011 and with Matthieu (Baumel), my current co-driver, we won the first of the Bajas last December. We will do our best to take the win again and seal the championship. We have a good car. The rally is also very useful experience for us before the Dakar Rally in January.
Nasser Saleh Al-Attiyah
It is a tall order for Alvarez, but the fight has at least confirmed that Overdrive Toyotas should take the top two places in the standings, unless Russia’s Denis Krotov finishes in the top four and Alvarez fails to finish. Krotov, in an X-Raid Mini, starts four points behind local hero Yazeed Al-Rajhi, who knows a strong result could also see him pass Alvarez for second in the series.
Hoping to spoil the party are the Orlen Team’s Jakub Przygonski and Argentina’s Sebastien Halpern in X-raid Minis, and Czech Miroslav Zapletal in a Ford F-150. Former Spanish enduro rider Laia Sanz joins X-raid in a Mini John Cooper Works Rally as part of her Dakar preparation.
T3 and T4
With the FIA T3 and T4 titles already won by Spain’s Cristina Gutierrez and America’s Austin Jones, pride and pre-Dakar experience are at stake in both classes.
Eight crews contest T3, led by Russia’s Pavel Lebedev in his Can-Am, against local favourite Saleh Al-Saif, fellow Saudis Mashael Al-Obaidan, Dania Akeel, Esra Aldkheil and Hamed Al-Harbi, Germany’s Annett Fischer and Uzbekistan’s Anvar Ergashev.
This is a great opportunity for me to test for Dakar. This is my third race after Sharqiya and Aragón in Spain. It’s the first time that Jacopo (Cerutti), my co-driver, and I participate together. I’ve been here a couple of times but never in an official race. There are three Saudi females, including myself. The sport is really booming here. I believe there is a really bright future in the Kingdom for everyone.
Mashael Al-Obaidan
Six crews fight for T4 honours over four days. South Racing Middle East’s Thomas Bell heads the field against Poland’s Marek and Michal Goczal, Kuwait’s Meshari Al-Thefiri, Australia’s Molly Taylor and Ukraine’s Ievgen Kovalevych.
Other categories
A National Rally runs behind the FIA event, alongside a separate event for motorcycles and quads, a truck class and permission for several 2022-spec cars to run as pre-Dakar testing.
Czech WRC star Martin Prokop drives the latest Ford Raptor Cross-Country for the Benzina Orlen Team, Frenchman Ronan Chabot and Argentina’s Juan Cruz Yacopini try Overdrive Racing’s new Toyota Hilux T1+, and Sweden’s Sebastien Eriksson drives the latest T3-2022 South Racing Can-Am Maverick.
The event is organised by the Saudi Automobile and Motorcycle Federation (SAMF) under the supervision of the Hail Regional Development Authority, with the General Authority for Tourism and National Heritage and the General Authority for Sport.
Wednesday
The first of four selective sections through the Al-Nafud desert starts 82.59km from Rally HQ, has a passage control and refuelling point after 173km and covers 258.14km, followed by a 47.31km liaison back to the bivouac.