– Yazeed Al-Rajhi the winner, Jakub Przygonski comes second
– All MINI vehicles secure top-six positions
The fifth round on the FIA Cross Country World Cup calendar, the Rally Kazakhstan, proved to be extremely successful for X-raid: The two MINI John Cooper Works Rally pairings, Yazeed Al-Rajhi (KSA) / Timo Gottschalk (GER) and Jakub ‘Kuba’ Przygonski (POL) / Tom Colsoul (BEL), outperformed the entire field. And Przygonski extended his lead in the FIA World Cup, with this performance.
Luc Alphand (FRA) / Andreas Schulz (GER) took the MINI John Cooper Works Buggy to fifth place and the Russian pairing Victor Khoroshavtsev / Dmitry Pavlov clinched an excellent sixth place in their debut with the MINI JCW Rally.
Quite obviously, Kazakhstan suited Al-Rajhi and Gottschalk perfectly – a fact that was demonstrated by their four stage wins in the seven-stage rally. They took the lead on day one and defended it throughout the event. « It was a great rally, long days and very challenging, » Al-Rajhi revealed after the rally. « We had a great fight with Kuba and the others. We are delighted with finally having been able to celebrate another win and I hope that our steak of bad luck is over now. »
Meanwhile, Przygonski and Colsoul also kept on pushing to extend their lead in the FIA World Cup – and they succeeded in doing so: the pairing secured two stage wins and finished second, right ahead of their rivals in the battle for FIA Cross Country Rally World Cup lead. Przygonski now holds the World Cup lead with 186 points on his tally, followed by Vladimir Vasilyev (143) and Martin Prokop (137). “The rally was thrilling to the very end. We had a great fight with Yazeed and Vasilyev and are really happy with having finished second,