Press Release
Qatar’s Nasser Saleh al-Attiyah was made to work mightily hard for a second victory in Rally Kazakhstan and the outright lead in the 2019 FIA World Cup for Cross-Country Rallies. The Qatari and his French co-driver Matthieu Baumel, driving for Overdrive Racing, looked to be in control before the fifth demanding selective section through some of the remotest terrain in eastern Kazakhstan. Lengthy delays for the crew in that loop stage to the north of Aktau City meant that the outcome went down to the wire and the Toyota Hilux crew had to stave off a fierce challenge from rival and Dakar legend Stephane Peterhansel over the final stage to confirm a second win on the longest FIA event in the calendar. Al-Attiyah eventually pressed on down the coastline of the Caspian Sea to the finish in Aktau City to secure a winning margin of 5min 21sec and repeat his 2017 triumph on the newest round of the cross-country calendar. The win gave him an unofficial nine-point lead in the Drivers’ Championship to take to the final round in Morocco in October.
Al-Attiyah said: “I am obviously very happy to win Rally Kazakhstan and now I am leading the championship. Now we are waiting for Morocco. This is a good year for us. Six wins in total and six races in which I compete. We controlled the pace well today. It was a nice stage, no problems.” Saudi Arabian driver Yazeed al-Rajhi was not able to repeat last year’s success in Kazakhstan but he and German co-driver Dirk von Zitzewitz claimed two stage wins, led after day one and recovered from a third-day roll and a series of punctures to reach the finish in eighth overall. Dutchman Bernhard Ten Brinke and Belgian co-driver Tom Colsoul held third overall in their Toyota Hilux until issues on the fifth Aktau loop stage cost them a lot of time. They won the last stage but hefty time penalties dropped them out of the top 15 at the finish in Aktau. After those penultimate stage problems that cost him third overall, Ten Brinke said: “We started that stage very fast and pushed a lot in the first part in the dunes. Then we broke a drive shaft and got stuck in the sand. It took us 30 minutes to get moving and then we had to change the drive shaft. Then we had a sensor alarm issue and had to stop and reset and then decided to quit the stage in case we damaged the car.” Al-Attiyah took an advantage of 5min 38sec into the short 148.76km final loop stage to the north of Aktau City that also featured a section running along the shoreline of the Caspian Sea. With nothing to lose after his issues on day five, Ten Brinke won the last stage in a time of 1hr 15min 08sec, but al-Attiyah did enough to stave off any late pressure from Peterhansel to secure the victory for Overdrive Racing and take the outright FIA World Cup lead.