JEDDAH, SAUDI ARABIA – Saudi duo Yazeed Al-Rajhi and Haitham Al-Tuwaijri clinched the car and quad titles in the 2023 Saudi Toyota Rally Championship on Saturday, setting the fastest times on the final 109km stage from Khulais. Bader Al-Hamdan won the motorcycle section on his Yamaha.
Al-Rajhi and Timo Gottschalk dominated in their new Overdrive Racing Toyota Hilux, winning the final stage by 6min 11sec and the rally by 27 minutes to secure Al-Rajhi’s third straight Saudi Toyota title.
We did it well. Timo did a great job, like always. We are happy, we are finished and we are ready for Dakar. The car is going well. That is the most important.
Yazeed Al-Rajhi
Saleh Al-Saif set the fourth fastest time to secure second overall in his G Rally Team OT3 and the T3 title for lightweight prototypes. Dania Akeel, in her last event with Wevers Sport before the Dakar, was T3 runner-up and third overall. Argentina’s Nicolás Cavigliasso was third in the T3 rankings.
It was a very good rally and our performance was decent. We are happy with this result before the Dakar Rally. It gives us a boost. We finished second in the championship and won T3. This result came through hard work on the past rounds. My co-driver Nasser (Al-Kuwari) did an excellent job. My ambition is to with the championship title in this car in the next seasons.
Saleh Al-Saif
It was really nice. Good navigation and really fast and technical. Sand, gravel and then green. It was good training. We had the same little problem as yesterday but we knew how it fix it and it didn’t slow us down. Maybe we lost 20 seconds.
Dania Akeel
Race World’s Yasir Seaidan lost time with transmission issues in his Can-Am Maverick XRS Turbo RR and dropped to fifth, but stayed ahead in T4.
It was a varied but fast stage. We had fun in the last section, the wadis between the mountains. We had a problem at km32 with a driveshaft, so I had to complete the stage with two-wheel drive. But we finished safety in good weather.
Yasir Seaidan
Khaled Al-Feraihi and Sébastien Delaunay set the fourth fastest time to climb to sixth and top T1 in their Nissan Patrol. Lionel Baud and daughter Lucie were seventh in an Overdrive Toyota, Hamad Al-Harbi eighth, and T1 runner-up Al-Mashna Al-Ramali and T4 champion Maha Al-Hameli completed the top 10.
Jafar Al-Qahtani finished 13th to win T2 for series-production vehicles, although Khaled Al-Hamzani took the Saudi category title; overnight leader Sufian Al-Omar fell to fourth behind Abdullah Al-Sanad. Japan’s Teruhito Sugawara, Hirokazu Someiya and Yuji Mochizuki won the T5 truck class in their Hino 600 on a pre-Dakar test.
Bikes and quads
Al-Hamdan started the day third but set the fastest bike time to overhaul overnight leader Abdulhalim Al-Mogheera and win. Mishal Al-Ghuneim was third, two places ahead of title rival Ehab Al-Hakeem, with UAE-based Philip Horlemann fourth.
Al-Tuwaijri won the quads comfortably on his Yamaha to finish the season well clear of Hani Al-Noumesi.
We enjoyed it and I cannot wait to participate in Dakar if it’s stages like these. I set a time as fast as the bike category and I clinched the quads category title in the championship.
Haitham Al-Tuwaijri
An eight-minute penalty dropped Abdulaziz Al-Atawi from second to fourth, behind Al-Noumesi and Qatar-based Belgian Emile Stuckens. The event was organised by the Saudi Automobile and Motorcycle Federation (SAMF) with the Ministry of Sport, official partner Abdul Latif Jameel Motors and strategic partner Saudi Investment Bank.