Qatar’s Abdulaziz Al-Kuwari will line up at the start of the 2012 Jordan Rally at the Royal Automobile Museum in Amman on Thursday evening determined to defend a three-point lead in the 2012 FIA Middle East Rally Championship.
The Doha-based Mini Cooper S2000 driver has 40 points after three rounds of the six-event regional rally series and will tackle 16 gravel special stages, near the Dead Sea, with it all to do if he is to fend off the challenge of former champion and fellow Qatari Misfer Al-Marri.
Al-Marri has 37 points from his three starts this season, but both drivers are aware that the Jordan Rally sees the reappearance of seven-time champion Nasser Saleh Al-Attiyah, 2004 champion and former WRC regular Sheikh Khalid Al-Qassimi and 10-time Rally of Lebanon winner Roger Feghali.
“I know it will not be easy to reach the podium in Jordan,” said Al-Marri, who won the championship in 2010 and is partnered by Italy’s Nicola Arena in his Ford Fiesta S2000. “Nasser is going to race in the last three rounds of the Middle East and he is more than capable of securing three wins and 75 points.”
Al-Attiyah finished second in Qatar back in January and missed the last two rounds of the series. He currently lies 22 points behind Al-Kuwari and 19 adrift of Al-Marri and knows that victory is paramount in Jordan if he is to wrest the title from his fellow Qatari’s clutches.