Qatar's Nasser Saleh Al Attiyah and his navigator Matthieu Baumel of Toyota Hilux Overdrive team in action during the fourth stage of Rally Kazakhstan.
Kenderly-Kazakhstan: Qatar’s Nasser Saleh Al Attiyah claimed his first stage victory in Rally Kazakhstan and extended his overall lead, after the fourth selective section of 274.17km across some of the remotest desert terrain in the Mangystau oblast.
Al Attiyah and French co-driver Matthieu Baumel, crewing an Overdrive Racing Toyota Hilux, began the day second on the road and looked set to potentially cede the stage win to Yazeed Al Rajhi and Timo Gottschalk for a third successive day.
But the Saudi's Mini John Cooper Works Rally fell into a deep hole in a stretch of tricky sand dunes close to the finish and the crew had to wait for Mohammed Abu Issa to arrive in a second Mini and offer support. Al Attiyah duly reached the finish 58 seconds in front of Jakub Przygonski, while Al Rajhi eventually dropped 1hr 50min to the stage winner.
Commenting on the day's proceedings, Al Attiyah said: “It was very hard today. It is a very interesting rally. We are happy to keep our lead and stay like this. The Mini is pushing a lot here. In a straight line the Mini is faster. But we took no risks and we try to manage each day. We did not see Yazeed. It was maybe a different route (he was on). We saw Timo (Gottschalk) but not the car. Tomorrow we have the opposite stage to the second day and we know it will not be easy.”
The day’s fourth selective section of 276.2km started after a liaison of 111.1km from Kenderly to the Senek road on the easterly side of Zhanaozen. The special wound its way in a clockwise - almost figure-of-eight-style - loop back to a finish through that fateful series of dunes near the village of Senek.
Lithuania’s Antanas Juknevicius, T2 leader Yasir Saiedan and Adel Abdulla climbed to sixth, seventh and eighth overall at the start of the day.
Adel Abdulla lost chunks of time early in the stage and fell further behind Saeidan in the battle for T2 honours, although the Qatari remains one of only nine drivers still running without at least 100 hours of time penalties.
Qatar’s Mohammed Abu Issa was on course for a top five finish until he stopped to assist Al Rajhi in the dunes, but AMFK President Marat Abykayev, Pavel Loginov, Dmitry Pitulov, Zhanat Zhalimbetov and Kirill Chernenkov made it safely through the special.
