Exclusive for www.biser3a.com, a quick chat with Sheikh Khalid Al Qassimi after the Jordan rally were we asked him about Jordan this year and his season so far. The 2004 Middle east champion and Team Abu Dhabi WRC driver talked openly about his pace and the shunts of last year…
How do you find yourself in the Jordan rally 2011, especially that your times are close to the top drivers?
We are satisfied with our results until now. We have to say that you need to put a lot of Mileage on this year’s car in order to be able to get the maximum out of it. Thank God for all the progress I am making and I also thank my engineer for all his support.
In the morning I made the wrong setup on the car. The back end of the car is very loose. This made the car very slippery and it never stopped going sideways which costs us a lot of time.
We should have put more weight in the rear in order for the car to be leaner and more stable. We lost some time in the opening stages but we made them up in the last 2 stages.
Jordan rally is very difficult and one should learn from the world champions in order to improve.
Last year you suffered from bad luck and many accidents and retirements. This year you seem more consistent and balanced. What do you tell us about your season so far?
I had good strategies last year. I was trying to push when needed and stop in other times in order to score points. The speed I was driving with last year was very risky. Although sometimes I was confortable in driving over the limit, I was driving on a fine line and this is very risky.
Take Finland for example; which considered a very difficult rally, I was 7th ahead of many Finnish drivers, and it was unbelievable. I crashed out when I came on a slow corner and had a massive shunt. After Finland I went to Germany to find my balance because I was a bit shaken down from the shunt, and then to Japan where I was hoping to gain back the rhythm and find the speed I had Finland but I had another massive shunt in the first stage of the rally.
This year I’m working on finding a better balance to my driving. I’m reviewing my work and trying to find the right time to push. You also have to know how to setup your car so can extract the speed from it and score good results.
Although some people are not happy I’m building my own strategy.
