Qatar’s Adel Hussein Abdulla heads to the punishing heat and dust of the Aragon region of Spain to take part in this weekend’s Baja Spain, round five of the FIA World Cup for Cross-Country Rallies. The event starts on Friday evening and then runs over barren rural tracks on Saturday and Sunday (July 23-24).
Running a Nissan Patrol with support from Nissan Middle East and the Qatar Motor and Motorcycle Federation (QMMF), the Qatari currently holds second position in the competitive FIA T2 World Championship for Series Production Cross-Country vehicles and trails the Saudi Arabian series leader Yasir Saeidan by 27 points.
“Spain is the next round and we have made good preparations and will push to the maximum to try and win T2,” said Adel Hussein, who will be co-driven by Frenchman Jean-Michel Polato. “I need to bridge the 27-point gap in the championship. This is not a big gap, because there are five more rounds in this year’s FIA World Cup. That means there are still a lot of points at stake.
“This is the first time for me in Baja Aragon. Several of my rivals have more experience than me here, but we plan to carry out a big test before the start to get everything ready. We could not do this at Baja Italy because the shakedown stage they gave us was very rough and would have damaged the car. I want to thank Nissan Middle East, the QMMF and Tok Sport for making this possible and also the media for the support they are giving us.”
Adel Hussein suffered a set back to his title challenge with the Japanese manufacturer at the last round in northern Italy when he slipped back to fifth position on the last stage, but the Qatari is in determined mood this week and will be hoping to follow in the footsteps of the Italian driver Elvis Borsoi, who won the T2 category on the Teruel-based event in 2015.
Adel Hussein has a solid hold on second place in the T2 series after round five and leads Poland’s Jaroslaw Kazberuk by 27 points and fellow countryman Mohammed al-Harqan by 28 points.
Competitive action gets underway from 18.51hrs on Friday evening with a revised opening special stage of 17km, near Teruel, and that precedes two days of action and a route of over 800km through the Jiloca and Comarca de Teruel regions.
There will be two selective sections of 194km and 188km from 08.31hrs and 13.34hrs on Saturday and a fourth and final special of 188km from 09.39hrs on Sunday morning.