HAIL, SAUDI ARABIA – Yazeed Al-Rajhi and Timo Gottschalk completed the demanding 302km opening stage of the Hail Toyota International Rally 2024 (Saudi Baja) in 2hr 45min 58sec to take the lead on Friday.
The varied stage wound through the An-Nafud desert from Qina, northwest of Hail. The Toyota Hilux crew finished 4min 10sec faster than Overdrive Racing team-mates Rokas Baciuška and Oriol Vidal, with Portugal’s João Ferreira and Filipe Palmeiro a further 1min 57sec back in their X-Raid Mini.
It was a good day. We did it well. Me and Timo overtake the other cars and then we opened the stage. It was not easy. In some places the navigation was difficult. But everything was going well for us. That’s the most important and we are in the lead.
Yazeed Al-Rajhi
Argentina’s Juan Cruz Yacopini was fourth in the third Overdrive Toyota. Saleh Al-Saif stormed to fifth and a 9min 33sec Challenger lead in his G Rally Team OT3 over Santag Racing’s João Dias, while Prologue winner Meshari Al-Thefiri lost more than two hours with broken suspension arms. Aliyyah Koloc was seventh and second among FIA Middle East Baja Cup drivers.
Fernando Alvarez and Xavier Panseri climbed to eighth in their South Racing Can-Am and lead SSV comfortably from Alexander Toril Boquoi.
We did a very good job. Xavier was amazing like always. We were fast. Tomorrow is another day but we are happy. We have a good feeling. It’s important to get points here.
Fernando Alvarez
Dania Akeel started well down the order after Prologue delays and climbed to ninth on her first real desert stage in an Overdrive Hilux.
It was a lot of fun. We had nice sand dunes and then open fast track. We had an issue with a broken front-left driveshaft. I think because I had my foot on the throttle in the air! So we lost about 20 to 25 minutes changing that and then we continued.
Dania Akeel
Bikes and quads
Mohammed Al-Balooshi won the stage by 2min 02sec from Kuwaiti team-mate Abdullah Al-Shatti to lead by 4min 10sec in the FIM Bajas World Cup opener.
It was a very long day and a very technical stage with a lot of navigation. You needed to be on top of your game. For me, the strategy was to start behind Pedro Bianchi but I was surprised that I caught him so soon. From km40, I opened most of the stage from there. I am really happy that me and my team-mate Abdullah Al-Shatti finished first and second. Now I need to recover for tomorrow.
Mohammed Al-Balooshi
Abdulhalim Al-Mogheera was third on the stage, Prologue winner Abdullah Abu Aisheh fourth overall, Hamdan Al-Ali climbed from 13th to fifth, and Pedro Bianchi Prata was seventh behind Open-class rider Philip Horlemann. Haitham Al-Tuwaijri won again on his Yamaha Raptor 700 to lead the quads by 21min 38sec from Hani Al-Noumesi, with Abdulaziz Al-Shayban third. Abdulaziz Al-Yaeesh leads the Saudi National Baja from Khaled Al-Shammeri.
Saturday’s shorter 164km second stage starts at Shut at 07:15, ahead of the evening press conference and prize-giving.