Neil Perkins
HAIL — Saudi Arabia’s Yazeed Al-Rajhi and German navigator Timo Gottschalk hammered home their advantage on the third selective section of the Hail Nissan International Rally Sunday and will take an outright lead of 1hr 01min 46sec into Monday’s final competitive section.
The Hummer driver carded a time of 2hr 22min 56sec for the desert stage, run to the north and west of the city of Hail, and beat nearest rival Ahmed Al-Shegawi by 19min 24sec.
“I am enjoying the rally and able to extend my lead each day and I am on course to score a fifth win here and the second in succession,” said Al-Rajhi.
Rajah-Fahan Al-Shammeri moved into second overall in his Nissan after clocking the fifth quickest time. Ahmed-Abdullah Al-Shehail moved up to an unofficial third, Faris Al-Mashna was fourth and Nissan Middle East-backed Lebanese driver Emil Khneisser was fifth. There were also useful moves up the leader board for Ahmed Al-Sabban and Owaid Mansi into eighth and 11th in the unofficial results.
Al-Rajhi began the day’s selective section of 206.40km with an overall lead over Khalid Al-Fraihi of 37min 17sec. The competitive route began from Shot and wound its way through the An Nafud desert to a finish, near Jubbah.
Al-Rajhi started to carve out a lead from the start and reached the third checkpoint with a 4min 50sec advantage over Ahmed-Abdullah Al-Shehail, who began the day in eighth overall of the surviving 32 cars.
Qatar’s Sheikh Hamed Bin Eid Al-Thani, former T3 front-running Emirati Khalid Al-Jaflah and Saudi’s Sami Al-Shammeri failed to start the stage after suffering technical issues Saturday.
Khalid Al-Fraihi lost second in the overall standings after beginning the stage late; the Saudi realized that he had left his crash helmet at rally headquarters and had to wait for it to be collected before he could start.
Abdul-Majeed Al-Khulaifi headed into the penultimate selective section with a lead of 6min 15sec over Heshayan Al-Heshayan’s Yamaha in the quad category. Both Al-Khulaifi and Ahmed Al-Nasser maintained their respective quad and motorcycle leads to take into Monday’s final selective section and look on course to repeat last year’s successes. Al-Khulaifi extended his advantage over Al-Heshayan to 10min 21sec in the quads. Abdulsalem Hamam is third of the seven survivors.
The rally is being staged under the patronage of Prince Saud Bin Abdul Mohsen Bin Abdul Aziz, Governor of Hail, President of the Supreme Commission for Hail Development and the Head of the Supreme Commission of the Hail Rally. The SAMF runs under the chairmanship of Prince Sultan Bin Bandar Al-Faisal and the event is being organized in conjunction with the High Authority for the Development of Hail.
Sunday’s fourth and final selective section of 176.50 starts at 09.30hrs from Al-Farhaniyah and finishes at Qana. A liaison section of 54.91m then guides teams back to the finish in Hail.
