Nicosia: The meandering route of gravel and tarmac which makes up the Cyprus Rally gives the UAE’s Shaikh Khalid Al Qasimi another intriguing test this weekend as he pursues a clear target for Abu Dhabi Racing in the 2013 FIA Middle East Championship.
After matching his best World Rally Championship finish of the season in Australia last month, the Emirati driver returns to the Middle East series seeking another big performance in Cyprus to propel him into the final round in Dubai next month.
Accompanied by Scott Martin in his Abu Dhabi Citroën Total DS3, Shaikh Khalid heads into the fifth and penultimate round of the Middle East Championship on Friday looking to increase his grip on second place in the standings.
This has been a challenging but highly productive first year for the new partnership between Abu Dhabi Racing and Citroën Racing, and Shaikh Khalid has gradually been returning towards his best form after being out of action for most of last year.
“It’s been a difficult season, because I’d been out of rallying for quite a while, and this is a new team, a new car, and it’s been a development year for us all,” he said, speaking from the Abu Dhabi Racing rally base in the Cypriot capital, Nicosia.
“We’ve had some disappointments, and we had to make the call not to go to Lebanon, so that has meant we’ve lost a lot of ground in the championship.
“But apart from that, we’ve been very close to the battle and have maintained our second place in the championship. The aim now is to make sure we hold on to that and have a good finish to the season.”
With the Cyprus Rally run on mixed surfaces, Al Qasimi tested the Abu Dhabi Citroën DS3 on Tuesday and will meet with team engineers after completing a two-day recce of the route to discuss the set-up of the car for 236 kilometres of competitive stages over gravel and tarmac.
“The test was good but the conditions were very rough,” he said. “The conditions on the stages will be different, and the surface is mixed, so we will have to finish the recce before we decide what changes we need to make to the car.”
This will be another eventful month for Abu Dhabi Racing in both the Middle East and World Rally Championship stage, with Al Qasimi following on from Cyprus with his final WRC appearance of the season in the penultimate round, Rally De Espana, on October 25 and 27.
He will be joined in Spain by Mohammad Al Mutawaa and Mohammad Al Sahlawi, who have been contesting the Middle East series in a pair of identical Abu Dhabi Citroën DS3 R3 2WDs. Al Mutawaa gave a good account of himself on his WRC debut in Germany last month, and Al Sahlawi now has a chance to gain more valuable experience at the top level.
