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Nasser Saleh al-Attiyah in action across the desert in Dubai yesterday.
The Dubai International Rally is poised to deliver a tense last day finale to the 2013 FIA Middle East Championship as Sheikh Khalid al-Qassimi battles against the odds to give the UAE its first victory in the event for seven years.
At the end of today’s first leg, the Emirati driver was 29.7 seconds adrift of Qatar’s Middle East champion, Nasser al-Attiyah, who is now firmly in the driving seat as he tries to win the final round of the regional series for a seventh consecutive year.
Partnered by British co-driver Scott Martin in his Abu Dhabi Citroën Total DS3, al-Qassimi must now produce one of the best performances of his career if he is to round off the season with victory for Abu Dhabi Racing.
Al-Qassimi’s second successive Dubai International win in 2006 was the last by a UAE driver, and he is determined to find a way past al-Attiyah and co-driver Giovanni Bernacchini in their Ford Fiesta RRC to break the Qatari’s dominance of the event.
On completion of the first leg’s six special stages, Saudi Arabia’s Yazeed al-Rajhi was in third place, with the UAE’s Sheikh Abdullah al-Qassimi, Qatar’s Misfer al-Marri and Jordan’s Alaa Rasheed, all driving Ford Fiesta RRC’s, completing the top six.
The traditional last round of the Middle East series had been expected to produce a fascinating tussle between al-Attiyah and Sheikh Khalid, and this was confirmed on the day’s first stage which the Qatari edged by just 0.1 seconds from the UAE driver.
Over the next stage, however, al-Qassimi grabbed the initiative, powering his Abu Dhabi Citroën into a 4.9 seconds advantage, before an incident on the next stage saw his lead reduced to 2.1 seconds.
The first stage of the afternoon saw al-Attiyah reclaim the lead by 7.8 seconds, increasing his advantage to 22.6 seconds on stage five after al-Qassimi collected a ten seconds penalty for a jump start, before the Qatari extended his advantage on the last stage.
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