Arab Stars Brave the Odds in Desert Challenge
Abu Dhabi, 30 March 2019: The UAEs Khalid Al Qassimi and Saudi Arabias Yazeed Al Rajhi will be battling the odds, and event history, when they each set off in pursuit of victory tomorrow morning in the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge powered by Nissan.
After todays (Saturday) ceremonial start at Yas Marina Circuit, the rally begins in earnest with the 261.97km first of five desert stages running through the dunes and sabka plains of the Al Dafrah Region in a route totalling 2,006.73km in length.
Al Qassimi, partnered by Frenchman Xavier Panseri in an Abu Dhabi Racing Peugeot 3008 DKR, knows what it is like to win the event, having done so in 2017 as his focus switched from WRC to cross country rallying.
It had been 25 years since another Emirati, Mohammed Mattar, secured victory in the Desert Challenge which has seen Arab drivers find success only six times in its 28 previous editions.
While Ahmed Al Shegawi won the T2 production cars category last year, Al Rajhi is attempting to become the first outright Saudi winner, helped by German co-driver Dirk Von Zitzewitz in a Toyota Hilux Overdrive.
In sharp contrast, Stphane Peterhansel and Cyril Despres have winning odds much more in their favour in an event which has brought 15 cars triumphs over the years for French drivers.
Accompanied by wife Andrea in a Mini John Cooper Works buggy, Peterhansel is responsible for five of those victories, plus one in the bikes category where Despres notched the other five by French riders before also switching from two wheels to four.
If an individual countrys success matters, Honda works team rider Joan Barreda Port could have a strong chance of denying KTM rival Sam Sunderland a second Desert Challenge bikes crown in
three years.
Spain has scored ten previous bikes victories in the event, eight of them by Marc Coma who won five times in a row from 2009, a sequence which might inspire his former KTM team-mate Sunderland as much as Barreda Port.
