The 2022 Jordan Rally, round four of the FIA Middle East Rally Championship (MERC), starts with a ceremonial start at the Royal Automobile Museum in Amman on Thursday afternoon.
Qatar’s Nasser Saleh Al-Attiyah has won the regional title 17 times and taken 80 MERC wins, 14 of them in Jordan. As France’s Sébastien Loeb chases an 81st WRC win at this weekend’s Rally of Portugal, Al-Attiyah aims for a similar milestone in the MERC more than 4,000 kilometres away at the lowest point on earth. Away from traditional stage rallying, the pair are now big rivals in the new FIA World Rally-Raid Championship.
Partnered by Andorra-based navigator Mathieu Baumel in an Autotek Volkswagen Polo GTi, the Qatari leads the MERC by 50 points from Jordan’s Issa Abu Jamous, who is concentrating on defending his sizeable MERC2 lead. Baumel missed the opening round in Oman through illness, so leads the Co-drivers’ Championship by only 11 points from Emad Juma.
I’m really happy to come back here to Jordan. It’s my favourite rally and it’s round four of the Middle East this year. It will not be easy for everybody. Also, this year, we have the long stage that we used before in the WRC. This will be tough for everybody. We will prepare. The atmosphere is always nice here in Jordan.
Nasser Saleh Al-Attiyah
This year has been a good year for us. We started by winning Dakar and then we won the two Middle East Championship rallies in Oman and Qatar. Kuwait, we finished second. We need to be clever here. If we win, we should win the championship. We need to enjoy and share the experience with everybody.
Nasser Saleh Al-Attiyah
The opposition
Two rivals in similar R5 cars and 23 more entrants across the various classes stand in his way.
Oman’s Abdullah Al-Rawahi partners local co-driver Ata Al-Hmoud in his Škoda Fabia R2 evo, while Al-Attiyah’s cousin Nasser Khalifa Al-Atya is joined by Italian navigator Giovanni Bernacchini in a Ford Fiesta R5.
Al-Rawahi and Al-Atya are third and fourth in the Drivers’ Championship, with Al-Rawahi looking to bounce back after a heavy landing damaged his Fabia’s radiator and engine at the last round in Kuwait.
Al-Atya was runner-up in the regional series in 1993 and would love to repeat that 29 years later. His only MERC win came at the Qatar International Rally that same year.
Bernacchini is joint third on the all-time list of MERC co-drivers with Chris Patterson on 25 wins, thanks to his years alongside Al-Attiyah. Only Ronan Morgan (41 wins) and Baumel (28 wins) have more.
On Thursday, cars go through scrutineering before several leading drivers attend the pre-event press conference (17.45hrs) ahead of the ceremonial start (18.00hrs onwards).