Qatar’s Nasser Saleh Al-Attiyah emerged unscathed from the final 350.94km selective section of the Sealine Cross-Country Rally to confirm a memorable victory at Losail on Friday. 

The final stage was won by the rally runner-up Yazeed Al-Rajhi, although he began the fifth section too far behind to realistically challenge for victory and the stage win was a minor consolation.

Al-Attiyah recorded a second outright triumph with Overdrive Racing and the Toyota Hilux in the space of four weeks and a fifth in six years. The achievement marked a third successive victory for his French navigator Matthieu Baumel and gives the entire team a comfortable lead in the FIA World Cup after three rounds. The X-raid Mini All4 Racing crew of Yazeed Al-Rajhi and Timo Gottschalk won the final stage and finished 12m03s behind the Toyota.

“It was a good day for us. This is an important win in Qatar,” said Al-Attiyah. “I am quite happy. It was good to control the race all the way. We had the speed if we needed it. After two races I have 120 points. Now we prepare ourselves for the smaller races. To win at home is fantastic.”

Second-placed Al-Rajhi said: “We are happy. We pushed at the start until we catch Nasser and then I follow him to the finish. It was a very good fight. Other than the one day, we did a very good job.”

Behind Al-Rajhi, G-Energy Team Mini driver Vladimir Vasilyev rounded off the podium in third overall, although the St. Petersburg-based driver was 1hr 11in 13sec behind Al-Attiyah. Kazakh Yuriy Sazonov finished an impressive fourth in the Mobilex Racing Team H3 and Jutta Kleinschmidt rounded off the top five.

“This has been a really enjoyable event, demanding, different and the stages were just the right length,” said Kleinschmidt. “It was a proper cross-country rally. It’s great to be back in the car and I hope that I can do some more events now. There is still work to do.”

Marek Dabrowski recovered from a roll in the middle of the week to snatch sixth in the second Toyota Hilux, but Ricardo Porém lost two places and finished seventh after delays with his Mini on the final stage. Chile’s Hernan Garces enjoyed an impressive Qatar debut in the DMAS South Racing Ford Ranger to finish eighth after Yerdan Shagirov’s H3 Evolution V fell foul of the final kilometres of the day.

Saudi’s Yasir Seaidan and French navigator Sébastien Delaunay survived two flat tyres on the penultimate stage to press home their T2 advantage into the final day and snatch the FIA T2 World Cup lead after three rounds. The Saudi had won the T3 section at Sealine back in 2013 and finished a fine ninth this week.

Pietro Cinotto beat his father Carlo to the final place in the top 10 and the spoils in T3. 

Adel Hussein shadowed Mohammed Al-Harqan and the Polish driver Jaroslaw Kazberuk (Fod Raptor) to claim fourth in T2 with his Nissan Middle East-supported Patrol. Abu Dhabi-based Lebanese driver Emil Khneisser was fifth in a second Nissan Patrol Y62.

Kiwi Emma Gilmour, French girl Charlotte Berton and Spain’s Cristina Gutierrez all started the final day in three QMMF-backed T1 Nissan Patrols and just one car reached the finish to cap a memorable week in the deserts for the girls running under the watchful eye of Kleinschmidt and their ‘mother’, the veteran WRC and Cross-County navigator Fabrizia Pons.

Gilmour retired when the wheel hub broke again and she shed the same wheel as she had on Thursday, Berton succumbed to an oil leak, but Gutierrez struggled on to reach Losail in an unofficial 22^nd overall after missing some of the rally with front differential issues.