Shaikh Khalid Al Qasimi faces tough test in Portugal

Dubai: UAE World Rally Championship driver Shaikh Khalid Al Qasimi is preparing for one of the toughest tests of his career at the Rally de Portugal on Thursday.

Partnered by British co-driver Scott Martin in his Abu Dhabi Citroën Total World Rally Team DS3 WRC, Al Qasimi believes the fourth round on this year’s WRC calendar will be the most physically demanding of the season.

The biggest concern for Al Qasimi — and one shared by many of the other 70 drivers — is a gruelling new 52.3km gravel section to be completed twice in just over four hours on Sunday’s final leg, which has the potential to make drivers’ hands bleed.

“In my entire rallying career, I have never done a 52km stage,” said Al Qasimi. “During testing, I tried to do a loop of 30km on a very technical, narrow road and by the end of it my hands had blisters and were really hurting. You have to be in very good shape and really focused to do a 52km stage twice in one day over a short period of time. Otherwise you are going to lose it for sure.”

Friday will be another demanding day in Portugal, with huge road sections to be completed either side of the evening super special stage in Lisbon, which follows two standard special stages of just over 20km and 18km being run twice earlier in the day.

“After those first four stages, we hit the road to Lisbon about 250km away and as soon as we’ve done the super special stage there, we go back another 300km to where the rally re-starts the next day,” said Al Qasimi. “The last time I was in Portugal they put the cars on trucks for that section but we have to drive [through] it this time. It’s going to be a long day.”

After a test session in dry conditions, Al Qasimi hopes rainy conditions in Portugal would have passes by the time he and co-driver Martin begin their recce and that there is no sudden shift in weather conditions when the rally starts.

“If you test and recce in the dry, the last thing you need is for it to start raining as soon as the rally gets under way, because it then becomes a different event and your pace notes are no good,” he said.

Despite the high degree of difficulty and the fact this is only his second WRC event after a 15-month gap, Al Qasimi is targeting a third top-ten finish in Portugal after placing eighth in 2009 and ninth in 2010. His last event this season was round two of the series in Sweden in February, where he was forced to retire with radiator a problem.