World Rally Championship driver Sheikh Khalid Al Qassimi will make his Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge debut later this month as a top-class field assembles for the event’s 25th anniversary.
Al Qassimi, the 2004 Middle East Rally Championship (MERC) winner, will be driving a Toyota Hilux Overdrive and will be partnered by Porutguese Jose Marques.
As well as Al Qassimi, three reigning world champions, Russian driver Vladimir Vasilyev, Spanish rider Mark Coma and Polish quads champion Rafal Sonik, head an entry list of 162 competitors from 36 countries announced by the Automobile and Touring Club of the UAE, the Desert Challenge organisers.
Vasilyev, who scored victory in Abu Dhabi last year on his way to winning the FIA World Cup for Cross Country Rallies, returns to defend his title alongside co-driver Konstantin Zhilstov in one of eight X-Raid-entered minis.
They are among 50 car crews going into action in the 25th Desert Challenge, which gets under way with an afternoon super special spectator stage at Yas Marina Circuit on March 28.
Coma, who secured the FIM Cross Country Rallies World Championship for a sixth time last year and in January scored his fifth Dakar Rally triumph, will be looking to take his KTM to an eighth Desert Challenge success.
“We’re delighted to have a total of 162 drivers, co-drivers, bike and quad riders from around the world for the 25th edition of the Desert Challenge, and the overall quality of entries underlines the status the event enjoys,” said ATCUAE President Mohammed Ben Sulayem, the rally founder.
“So many of these competitors return to the UAE year after year, and there is a great spirit between all of them, with world champions and local private entrants sharing the stage, and supporting and encouraging each other. I’m proud that the rally has developed in this way.”
While the super special stage on Saturday week will be a big draw for spectators, the main action takes place over five spectacular desert stages that follow, cutting through the intimidating dunes and sabkha plains of the Western Region of Al Garbia.
Among those aiming to beat defending champion Vasilyev to the cars title is Qatar’s 2008 winner, Nasser Al Attiyah, who scored his second Dakar success in January and has since notched successive Middle East Rally Championship wins on home territory and in Kuwait.
The top two seeds drive two of eight ALL4 Racing Minis prepared for the event by X-Raid, with another carrying Poland’s Adam Malysz, the runner-up to Vasilyev last year.
Aiming to become the fourth Arab driver to find victory in the event is Saudi Arabia’s Yazeed Al-Rajhi, who must hold serious hopes of a big result in the UAE after his superb Dakar Rally debut when he held third place before retiring two stages from the end.
Coma is seeded first in the bikes category ahead of Portugal’s Paulo Goncalves, the rider who beat him to the Desert Challenge title last year, and his Honda team-mate, Joan Barreda Bort.
Much attention will also focus on fourth-seeded Sam Sunderland, the UAE-based British rider and KTM team-mate of Coma’s who is seeking a breakthrough win in the event.
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