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Tribune News Network
DOHA
Qatar’s Nasser bin Saleh al Attiyah pulled off another stage win and continued to work his way up the overall standings of the Silk Way Rally along with co-pilot French Matthieu Baumel Toyota Gazoor Racing Overdrive) on Wednesday.
The triple Dakar Rally winner Attiyah put up a master performance over the fourth stage in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia to come home in Toyota Hilux in 3:54:16 at an incredible 120kph.
He also led a one-two for Overdrive on the timed 470-km distance on the Ulaanbaar loop as teammates Eric van Loon and Sébastien Delaunay finished four minutes and 13 seconds behind him.
Attiyah commented after the fourth successive stage victory, “We drove at our own pace today. It is never easy on a special that is so fast and so long to be quick without making a mistake. This is our fourth stage win in a row but we must careful on every stage. Each day, we try and increase our lead to have a bigger gap on our rivals,”
Starting eighth on the road this morning, van Loon made a bold attempt to compensate for Monday’s mechanical problems. Behind these two it is a buggy free-for-all, led today by Chinese driver Liu Kun (Hanwei SMG) and the Optimus of Jérôme Pélichet. Fourth today, the Frenchman profited from Han Wei’s 2-minute speeding penalty to move up to third place overall.
Fellow countryman Mathieu Serradori (Buggy CR6 SRT) lost significant time with a defective accelerator.
Van Loon said, “An amazing experience! I have been racing for 12 years and I’ve never done anything like that. 470 kilometres flat out, through amazing scenery, it was just fantastic, even if we had a lot of dust, especially from the trucks, who weren’t easy to overtake. I’m also very happy to find myself back up at the front of the pack, after the mechanical problems we had on Monday.”
On Thursday, the fifth stage will be run from Ullanbaatar to Mandalgovi with 337 kms out of 365 kms having selective section on Mongolia’s signature tracks of hills, steppes, off-road driving and many parallel paths, which may misdirect the inattentive ones.
There are tourist zones, monuments and stony hollows on the route. Trying to escape from the heat, the track then leads the racers into the mountains, where they are required to seek for their speedy path across plateau at the altitude of 1,600 meters.ResultsFourth Stage (unofficial T1)
1.Nasser bin Saleh al Attiyah (Qatar) Toyota Hilux
3:54:16
2.Eric van Loon (Netherlands) Toyota Hilux +4:13
3.Kun Liu (China) Hanwei +5:31
4.Jerome Pelichet (France) Optimus +8:01
5.Gang Zi Yun (China) Hanwei +8:15
6.Rong Zi (China) Hanwei +8:28
7.Wei Han (China) Geely +9:31
8.Denis Krotov (Russia) Mini +12:45.
9.Ping Sun (China) Hanwei +13:34
10.Ming Zhang (China) Hanwei +18:36
DOHA
Qatar’s Nasser bin Saleh al Attiyah pulled off another stage win and continued to work his way up the overall standings of the Silk Way Rally along with co-pilot French Matthieu Baumel Toyota Gazoor Racing Overdrive) on Wednesday.
The triple Dakar Rally winner Attiyah put up a master performance over the fourth stage in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia to come home in Toyota Hilux in 3:54:16 at an incredible 120kph.
He also led a one-two for Overdrive on the timed 470-km distance on the Ulaanbaar loop as teammates Eric van Loon and Sébastien Delaunay finished four minutes and 13 seconds behind him.
Attiyah commented after the fourth successive stage victory, “We drove at our own pace today. It is never easy on a special that is so fast and so long to be quick without making a mistake. This is our fourth stage win in a row but we must careful on every stage. Each day, we try and increase our lead to have a bigger gap on our rivals,”
Starting eighth on the road this morning, van Loon made a bold attempt to compensate for Monday’s mechanical problems. Behind these two it is a buggy free-for-all, led today by Chinese driver Liu Kun (Hanwei SMG) and the Optimus of Jérôme Pélichet. Fourth today, the Frenchman profited from Han Wei’s 2-minute speeding penalty to move up to third place overall.
Fellow countryman Mathieu Serradori (Buggy CR6 SRT) lost significant time with a defective accelerator.
Van Loon said, “An amazing experience! I have been racing for 12 years and I’ve never done anything like that. 470 kilometres flat out, through amazing scenery, it was just fantastic, even if we had a lot of dust, especially from the trucks, who weren’t easy to overtake. I’m also very happy to find myself back up at the front of the pack, after the mechanical problems we had on Monday.”
On Thursday, the fifth stage will be run from Ullanbaatar to Mandalgovi with 337 kms out of 365 kms having selective section on Mongolia’s signature tracks of hills, steppes, off-road driving and many parallel paths, which may misdirect the inattentive ones.
There are tourist zones, monuments and stony hollows on the route. Trying to escape from the heat, the track then leads the racers into the mountains, where they are required to seek for their speedy path across plateau at the altitude of 1,600 meters.ResultsFourth Stage (unofficial T1)
1.Nasser bin Saleh al Attiyah (Qatar) Toyota Hilux
3:54:16
2.Eric van Loon (Netherlands) Toyota Hilux +4:13
3.Kun Liu (China) Hanwei +5:31
4.Jerome Pelichet (France) Optimus +8:01
5.Gang Zi Yun (China) Hanwei +8:15
6.Rong Zi (China) Hanwei +8:28
7.Wei Han (China) Geely +9:31
8.Denis Krotov (Russia) Mini +12:45.
9.Ping Sun (China) Hanwei +13:34
10.Ming Zhang (China) Hanwei +18:36
