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Tribune News Network
DOHA
Qatar's Adel Abdulla was involved in a gripping battle with Russian driver Alexey Titov through the super special stage and opening selective section of the Baja Russia Northern Forest Rally before losing time on the second of the icy and snowy competitive sections on Saturday afternoon.
The Qatari and navigator Nasser al Kuwari are taking part in the opening round of the 2018 FIA World Cup for Cross-Country Rallies in a bid to regain the FIA T2 World Championship in their Toyota Land Cruiser VDJ 200. They held second position in T2 at the end of the day behind Titov and ahead of Portugal's Bruno Oliveira after slipping off the road and into a snow bank.
Running with support from the Qatar Motor and Motorcycle Federation (QMMF) and the Qatar Government, Adel now needs to recover the lost time over the remaining two stages on Sunday and try and amass as many points as possible.
"We drove strong in the first timed stage over 104 kms and finished only 27 seconds behind the leader. This was tough stage in the snowy conditions and still, we did well to retain the second spot," Abdulla said.
"But, we had a problem in the second one. At around 54 kilometres, there was a big rear part of a prototype car was lying on the way. When I tried to avoid it at the corner, the car slipped off the course and got stuck into the wall of snow. Other T2 drivers saw us but nobody stopped to help us out.
"We took time to get the car back on the track with the help of a local driver later. We lost a lot of time but again drove well to retain the second place," Abdulla added.
"Tomorrow is the third and final day of the rally. We have 220 kms to race and we'll try to do as well as possible with an aim to recover the lost time and get maximum possible points. Let us see what happens on Sunday," the Qatari driver said.
Action got underway on Friday afternoon with a Prologue stage of 17km and Abdulla clocked a time of 16min 39sec, which put him into second position in the T2 category, 50 seconds behind the Ford F-150 Raptor of Titov. Poland's Tomasz Baranowski and Oliveira were third and fourth, while Russian Yuliya Migunova-Khegay rounded off the top five in a second Ford Raptor.
Titov managed to extend his advantage over Abdulla by another 27 seconds through a hard-fought opening selective section on Saturday morning and consolidated that advantage on the second one when the Qatari dropped 29 minutes after leaving the track and slipped behind Oliveira through the opening kilometres of the stage. The Qatari managed to recoup some of the lost time and retained second position.
