The Saudi Baja-Hail, opening round of the 2023 FIA World and Middle East Cups for Cross-Country Bajas, the FIM Bajas World Cup and the Saudi Toyota National Rally Championship, starts from the Maghwat conference facility on the outskirts of Hail on Thursday afternoon.
The three-day route through the deserts around the north-central city is varied and demanding, made up of 85% open desert, 10% gravel and dirt tracks and 5% sand dunes in the An Nafud.
The approved final FIA entry of 34 cars features six modified T1 cars, seven T2 series-production cross-country vehicles, 10 T3 lightweight prototypes and 11 T4 entries. A National Baja for mainly local crews runs behind the main event.
Al-Rajhi out
Tuesday’s big news was the withdrawal of local favourite and defending champion Yazeed Al-Rajhi. The Saudi suffered a minor chest injury in an accident on a recent skiing holiday at Courchevel in France and has been experiencing pain on the right side of his chest. On Tuesday evening the Riyadh driver confirmed a hairline fracture of his right fifth rib and minor cartilage damage.
Despite wanting to take part in the Baja in Hail, I felt severe chest pain this morning (Tuesday), so I had to go back to my doctor and have more tests done. Initially, I was not diagnosed with broken ribs but I was diagnosed with edema (swelling caused by fluid trapped in body tissue), which caused the continuous pain. The doctors advised me not to take part in the rally until I get better.
Yazeed Al-Rajhi
Al-Rajhi won the Hail International Rally in 2009 and 2010 with Mathieu Baumel, now Al-Attiyah’s co-driver, and three more times in 2012, 2015 and 2016, before adding Saudi Baja success last November.
Three-way fight for victory
The battle at the front is now between the Toyota Hiluxes of five-time Dakar winner Nasser Saleh Al-Attiyah and Argentina’s Juan Cruz Yacopini and the X-raid Mini John Cooper Works Rally Plus of Polish veteran Krzysztof Holowczyc and co-driver Lukasz Kurzeja.
Al-Attiyah first won in Hail in 2011 with the official Volkswagen factory team and added Baja wins with Baumel in 2020 and 2021. He returns on the back of last month’s superb drive to a fifth Dakar victory.
Yacopini and Spanish co-driver Daniel Oliveras finished seventh on this year’s Dakar and crew the second Toyota.
Holowczyc has vast cross-country experience after switching from special stage rallying, where his distinguished career brought him the European Rally Championship. The Pole won the 2010 FIA World Cup for Cross-Country Bajas and the 2013 FIA World Cup for Cross-Country Rallies, and his best Dakar result was third overall in an X-raid Mini behind Al-Attiyah and Giniel de Villiers in 2015.
Local T1 opposition comes from Saudi Border Guard team driver Khalid Al-Feraihi and his French team-mate Sébastien Delaunay, and from Mohammed Al-Tuwaijri and Hani Al-Shammeri in a pair of modified Nissans.
T3 and T4
Saudi driver Yasir Seaidan has made a late switch from a T1 Toyota to a Race World Team Can-Am in T3. He faces nine strong rivals, including defending FIA champion Fernando Alvarez, last year’s runner-up Dania Akeel, multiple FIA MERC2 champion Meshari Al-Thefiri, local talent Saleh Al-Saif and Dutch all-rounder Kees Koolen, whose G Rally Team OT3 is the only non-Can-Am in the T3 entry.
This is the first round of the World Cup and this is where we won the championship last year. We made a good shakedown and everything was perfect, so we are just waiting for the start of the race. I hope to have good news at the end of the weekend.
Fernando Alvarez
The 11-strong T4 entry was boosted by the late addition of Qatar’s Khalid Al-Muhannadi and Portuguese co-driver Pedro Santos, while fellow Polaris driver Luis Maria Henderson of Argentina confirmed that Italy’s Juan Carlos Carignani will co-drive his RZR Pro R.
Among the class favourites are defending FIA champion Cristiano Batista in his South Racing Can-Am, young Pau Navarro in an FN Speed-built machine and Italy’s Michele Cinotto in one of three Xtremeplus Team Polaris RZRs.
The Baja is run by the Saudi Motorsport Company with the Saudi Automobile and Motorcycle Federation (SAMF) and the Ministry of Sport, under the chairmanship of SAMF President H.R.H. Prince Khalid bin Sultan Al-Abdullah Al-Faisal and in partnership with Abdul Latif Jameel (ALJ) Motors.
Competition begins with a three-kilometre Qualifying Stage from 16.30hrs tomorrow afternoon, following the traditional ceremonial start at 16.00hrs next to the Maghwat conference facility.