The Peninsula
The South Racing
Can-Am Team has
entered a pair of
Can-Am Maverick T3s
for Oman’s Abdullah Al
Zubair and Russian
driver Fedor Yorobeyev
in this week’s Manateq
Qatar Cross-Country
Rally (QCCR).
The Lusail-based
event is the opening
round of a revised FIA
World Cup for Cross Country Rallies that features further long-distance rallies in Abu
Dhabi, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan and
Morocco.
The T3 category has become
the most popular of the three FIA car
racing categories (T1, T2 and T3) on the
back of the success of the Side-by-Side
(SxS) section at the Dakar Rally.
The Qatar event is being organised
by the Qatar Motor and Motorcycle Federation (QMMF) and has attracted a provisional 13 entrants in T3.
Al Zubair and Yorobeyev are
running under the AZ Racing Team and
Zavidovo Racing Team banners, respectively.
The Omani has teamed up with
the experienced Qatari navigator Nasser
Al Kuwari on this occasion. The cousin
of Porsche Super Cup racer Al Faisal Al
Zubair, he tackled the event in the
National category last year and claimed
silverware before switching to his
exciting new Can-Am project.
Last weekend, he and navigator
Faisal Al Raisi finished second overall
behind Italy’s Michele Cinotto in the T3
category at the Baja Russia Northern
Forest Rally, the opening round of the
new FIA World Cup for Cross-Country
Bajas.
Yorobeyev teams up with fellow
countryman Kirill Shubin in the third
of the South Racing Can-Am Maverick
X3s. The experienced duo finished 15th
overall and sixth in T3 in last weekend’s
Russian event that used snow-lined
forest tracks in the Republic of Karelia,
close to the border with Finland.
South Racing Can-Am Team’s Scott
Abraham, said: “Abdullah and Fedor are
looking forward to a cross-country
event after coming back from Russia a
couple of days ago. Abdullah is running
in a full spec 2019 car. This rally is much
closer to his home country of Oman. I
think his partnership with (Nasser) Al
Kuwari will be a strong team and they
will be looking for a good result.
“Fedor and Kirill are an experienced team. They have competed a lot
in Russia and have raced for several
years in the T3 category. They raced
Russia in their own vehicle and this is
the first time that they are racing with
South Racing Can-Am. We want to bring
both cars to the finish and have a good
race.”
The Manateq Qatar Cross-Country
Rally gets underway with the first of
five desert stages of around 102km on
February 22.
They will then tackle four selective
sections across much of the desert
terrain of Qatar on February 23-26 with
timed sections of 313km, 338km, 350km
and 270km planned – totalling 1,367km
- for the remaining four days before the
finish on the Pearl-Qatar.
The switch to a date in February for
the first time, as opposed to the customary slot in the calendar at the end of
April, means that outside temperatures
are around 10 or 15°C cooler with crews
set to race in temperatures of around
22-25°C.