Dubai: UAE rider Mohammad Al Beloushi lost his lead in the Pharaons International Cross Country Rally on Friday as Bolivia’s Chavo Salvatierra took over top spot going into the fifth and final stage.
Salvatierra held a 3.55 minute advantage over Polish rider Jakub Piatek, whose second place in Friday’s stage still gave him the general classification lead with a 2.38-minute advantage — over the Bolivian rider.
The overnight leader at the end of the fourth leg on Friday, the UAE’s Mohammad Al Beloushi is in third place a further 3.04 minutes off the leader, while Diocleziano Toia is in fourth despite injuring his shoulder due to a fall.
Paolo Sabbatucci was compelled to withdraw with a fracture of his left radius and was airlifted by a helicopter to the bivouac.
In the Quads category, Mohammad Abu Eissa was faster than Rafal Sonik after finishing almost eight minutes ahead of his Polish challenger. The Qataris have a 12-minute gap between their closest challengers and Saturday’s final stage will seal them a deserving win.
Qatar’s Nasser Saleh Al Attiyah was all set to win the overall honours in the cars category after increasing his advantage in the general ranking to more than eleven minutes over his closest challenger. Also assisting the gifted Qatari champion was the absence of Saudi Arabia’s Yazeed Al Rajhi, who could not start on Friday. The no-start means that Al Rajhi has been overtaken in the classification by Russian Vladimir Vasilyev and Brazilian Reinaldo Varela.
Meanwhile, Emil Khneisser in a Nissan won the T2 Class and Raul ‘Mono’ Orlandini of Peru took the top honours in the T3 Class on Friday.
Saturday was scheduled to be the final stage of the Pharaons Rally with the competitors proceeding after nearly 400km directly in front of the Giza Pyramids for a deserving finale to the 2015 edition.
