HAIL (SAUDI ARABIA): Toyota’s Nasser Saleh Al Attiyah and Matthieu Baumel delivered a text book performance to secure what they though would be their respective FIA Drivers’ and Co-drivers’ titles, after a thrilling finale to the 2020 FIA World Cup for Cross-Country Bajas at Hail Baja 2 on Wednesday.
But a protest was placed by Vladimir Vasilyev’s VRT Team and the outcome of the event was decided by the FIA Stewards late on Wednesday evening.
Time penalties for excess speed were imposed on four drivers inside the top eight and the two-minutes handed to Al-Attiyah was enough to overturn the 54-seconds he had earned over Sainz and the win was duly handed to the Spaniard, even though he too was also awarded a one-minute punishment.
Worse still for Al-Attiyah, was the loss of seven points – the difference between winning and finishing second – that gifted the world title to Vasilyev and saw Al-Attiyah’s Toyota team-mate Tom Colsoul tie for the co-drivers’ crown with Baumel, before the latter took it unofficially on a tie-break.
Trailing overnight leaders Carlos Sainz and Lucas Cruz by 2min 20sec at the restart, Al-Attiyah began to eat into the stage-opening Spaniard’s lead, knowing that outright victory should give him the Drivers’ title. Over the day’s short desert section of 180.38km to the north-west of Hail, 33 seconds of Sainz’s overnight lead was eroded after 69km and 46 seconds had gone by 95km.
After 121km, 68 seconds of the advantage had been devoured but Al-Attiyah was running out of kilometres to overturn the deficit. As Sainz agonizingly lost vital seconds trying to find a tricky late waypoint, the Toyota driver stormed through the closing kilometres to claim a 54-second win, not realising at the time that the result would be overturned hours later.
Sainz’s X-raid team-mate Stéphane Peterhansel settled for third place on the podium in the new Mini John Cooper Works Buggies, the Frenchman taking the second fastest time on the day’s stage.
Sainz said: “It was a difficult place to find a waypoint. That’s all. It was a mistake in the road book. I don’t want to make any excuses, but I think we should have cameras in the cars at all times. This should be compulsory. It was good practice for the Dakar.”
Peterhansel added: “It was a very fast stage, especially at the beginning and then it was a bit more technical. It was good to do these days of racing here. This is the first time that we did the navigation in the desert together.”
Saudi driver Yazeed Al-Rajhi was third on the day in his Overdrive Toyota and reached the finish in fourth place, while Poland’s Jakub Przygonski recovered strongly from a disappointing Hail Baja 1 to confirm fifth overall on the second event.
Al-Rajhi said: “We do it well. We try our best to try and catch Peterhansel. But he is a fast driver. He has a lot of experience. When I see the mark in the road, every car in the front, cutting, was flying. After that I thought, okay, everybody push and then we stay safe to make no mistake. It was good training for Dakar. We still need to improve ourselves.”
Russian Vladimir Vasilyev (Mini) celebrated his title at the 11th hour, but Dutchman Bernhard Ten Brinke (Toyota) fell short in the goal of winning the championship. Vasilyev reached the finish in sixth to seal the Drivers’ Championship and Ten Brinke was seventh.
