Hamza Bakhashab and Abdullah Al-Rawahi were handed stage-opening duties after finishing fifth and sixth of the Rally2 crews on Thursday’s qualifying stage.
Nasser Saleh Al-Attiyah was sixth on the road through the 16.54km of the new Lejthaya stage in the Al-Shamal municipality. Cool and cloudy conditions and a slight breeze greeted crews on the run north.
SS1
Bakhashab (pictured) stopped the clocks in 12min 23.2sec on his first ever MERC special stage in Qatar after stopping for three minutes on the track to change a puncture. Al-Rawahi set the benchmark time of 9min 07.5sec.
Abdulaziz Al-Kuwari temporarily slotted into second with a run of 9min 23.6sec until Al-Attiyah displaced his fellow Qatari with a run of 9min 11.4sec. Al-Rawahi had the early lead – 3.9 seconds.
Shaker Jweihan took an early 17-second lead in MERC2 over Zakariya Al-Aamri with Charbel Chebly holding third and Sami Fleifel in fourth. Rashid Al-Muhannadi was the class of the Rally4 field but Shadi El-Fakih’s Rally5 Renault Clio stopped briefly in the stage.
Payyaakkal Saneem was sidelined on the road section after the stage with electrical problems on his Ford Fiesta Rally4 but Mohammed Al-Atteya (Can-Am) returned to Lusail after stopping with mechanical issues on the road section to the opening special.
SS2
The tight morning timetable continued with the 16.11km of the nearby Waab Al-Mashrab stage.
Bakhashab was back into a competitive pace after his first stage setback, but Al-Rawahi stopped in the stage and lost five minutes with double puncture woes.
Al-Kuwari set the target time of 9min 52.4sec but that was soon overhauled by Al-Attiyah’s run of 9min 38.3sec and the defending champion moved into a 26.3-second lead. Jweihan extended his lead in MERC2 over Sami Fleifel to over a minute.
SS3
Al-Waab (18.14km) was the last stage of the rapid-fire morning loop.
Bakhashab safely negotiated his first loop of Qatar stages and had climbed back into fifth overall on the return to Lusail. Al-Rawahi set the target time of 10min 01.9sec but the damage had already been done for the Omani on the previous stage.
Al-Attiyah was six seconds faster than Al-Rawahi and returned to Lusail with an advantage of 46.6 seconds over Al-Kuwari. Al-Marri and Nasser Khalifa Al-Atya held third and fourth overall and Jweihan was sixth in the MERC2-leading Mitsubishi.
Quotes from Lusail regroup – after SS3:
Al-Rawahi said: “I don’t know what is up with the punctures. I keep getting a lot of punctures. Not sure if it’s the tyres or us pushing so hard. When I got the two punctures in the second one, I couldn’t tell where I got them. I was driving clean. It was quite unfortunate. We had to stop and change the one and then we drove on a slow puncture for the last stage. We lost a lot of time but we will try to get back up. With no mistakes, we might get back to third or fourth. We also need to think about the parts because I’m not sure we actually have it (light unit) or not. There is a chance we cannot continue.”
