Northern Ireland’s Kris Meeke and Norway’s Mads Østberg head a top-quality field announced by the Qatar Motor and Motorcycle Federation (QMMF) for next week’s Qatar International Rally.
Round two of the 2022 FIA Middle East Rally Championship (MERC) runs on February 10th-12th, pitting the two WRC stars against multiple regional champion and recent Dakar Rally winner Nasser Saleh Al-Attiyah and the region’s other leading stage specialists.
Both drive Škoda Fabias: Meeke with veteran navigator Chris Patterson, and Østberg with Austria’s leading female co-driver Ilka Minor. Qatar’s Abdulaziz Al-Kuwari and Khaled Al-Suwaidi drive two more Fabias for the QMMF Rally Team, with Australia’s Dale Moscatt and Portugal’s Hugo Magalhães respectively.
The WRC challengers
Meeke, 42, returns to Qatar for a second time after retiring early with radiator trouble from his much-anticipated duel with Al-Attiyah last year. He has five WRC wins — Argentina in 2015, Portugal and Finland in 2016, and Mexico and Spain in 2017 — plus five Intercontinental Rally Challenge (IRC) wins in 2009 and 2010.
Patterson retired from the FIA World Rally Championship last year after spending much of the season with M-Sport Ford’s Gus Greensmith. A former co-driver to Al-Attiyah, he has 25 MERC wins and partnered Meeke in the mid-2000s, highlighted by a JWRC win at the 2005 Monte-Carlo Rally.
Østberg, 34, makes his Middle East debut. His only WRC win came in Portugal in 2012, but he has won 65 WRC stages, took the FIA WRC2 title in 2020 with PH Sport and was runner-up last season with the TRT World Rally Team. As a Citroën factory driver he was also runner-up in the 2019 WRC2 Pro series.
Minor was due to partner Oman’s Hamed Al-Wahaibi in Jordan last year, but the car was damaged in a pre-event shakedown. She is best known for her many international rallies with Norway’s Henning Solberg, Russia’s Evgeny Novikov and Austria’s Manfred Stohl.
Eight R5 cars
Eight of the 14 FIA entries are R5 cars in the RC2 class. Oman’s Hamed Al-Wahaibi and Abdullah Al-Rawahi drive two Škodas and former series runner-up Nasser Khalifa Al-Atya brings his Ford Fiesta R5. All three competed in Oman last weekend, finishing sixth, seventh and third.
Five crews will contest MERC2. Jordan’s Ihab Al-Shorafa won the category in Oman last weekend and is joined in Qatar by compatriot Issa Abu Jamous, who lost the Oman class win to a 10-minute penalty imposed at post-event scrutineering for a documentation violation.
The defending MERC2 champion makes his first appearance of the season in his Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution X, and Oman’s Zakariya Al-Aamri and Qatar’s Mohammed Al-Attiyah complete the Group N field. Former MERC3 champion Henry Kahy is the only entrant in a Can-Am Maverick X3.
We are delighted to see such a strong entry for the Qatar International Rally and competitors from 15 nations. With eight R5 cars running at the front of the field, we have the strongest competition we have seen in the MERC during the modern era. The stages in Qatar are difficult and challenging and are sure to test our visiting drivers and provide a superb spectacle and intense competition.
QMMF Executive Director Amro Al-Hamad
New shakedown and Losail base
The QMMF has planned a three-day format with a new seven-kilometre shakedown on Thursday, February 10th, a short distance north of the Losail Circuit and close to the Al-Bayt Stadium, which will host the opening match of the FIFA World Cup 2022 in November. Twelve timed stages follow in the Qatar deserts on Friday and Saturday, February 11th-12th.
The event is also based at the Losail Circuit this year, with administration, scrutineering, the service park, parc fermé, the media room and rally HQ all at LCSC.