At the midway point of the 2018 Rallye du Maroc the battle is on for offroad supremacy in both the two and four wheel categories. Two-time Dakar Rally winner Nasser Al-Attiyah leads the car contest, while Toby Price of the Red Bull KTM Factory Team has his nose in front of the bike race.
A decisive stage win for Qatari racer Nasser Al-Attiyah and his French co-driver Mathieu Baumel on the third day of the Rallye du Maroc have put the pair on top of the car race. Al-Attiyah drove his Toyota Hilux expertly over the dunes throughout Saturday’s 329-kilometre timed special stage.
« So far everything has been going well for us, confidence is high and we’re doing all we can to win » – Nasser Al-Attiyah
Frenchmen Cyril Despres and co-driver Jean-Paul Cottret clocked the day’s second fastest time in the car category. As a result Despres has moved his MINI John Cooper Works Buggy up the overall rankings to sit 15 minutes behind Al-Attiyah in second place.
« We finished second, which could have been better but also could have been much worse. It was a tense situation to drive 200 kilometres with no spare tyre left » – Cyril Despres
Despres and Cottret’s fellow X-raid MINI JCW Team crew of Spaniards Carlos Sainz and Lucas Cruz endured a difficult stage and look to have relinquished hope of winning outright in Morocco.
Polish driver Kuba Przygonski and his Belgian co-driver Tom Colsoul rounded off the car race podium. Przgonski and Colsoul are now a big step closer to claiming the 2018 FIA Cross Country Rally World Cup thanks to guiding their MINI through another tough day in Morocco.
“We were trying all day to go on the maximum speed that we could. We had two flat tyres along the way, but the rest was OK.