Rally Kazakhstan: Al Attiyah maintains his lead in a day full of dramas

Nasser Al Attiyah and Mathieu Baumel have remarkably clung onto their Rally Kazakhstan lead, despite problems during the fifth leg today.

The duo now head Stéphane and Andrea Peterhansel by five minutes and 38 seconds, the husband and wife team powering into second position as both Jakub Przygonski and Bernhard Ten Brinke dropped time.

Przygonski and co-driver Timo Gottschalk lost nearly an hour to Peterhansel in the stage, dropping them to third position while Ten Brinke and Tom Colsoul – who were third last night – were forced to abandon their run to the finish of the section.

The penultimate leg of Rally Kazakhstan took the crews north from the Aktau bivouac for a 290.19 kilometre section and the drama-filled day saw a number of the leading crews hit problems.

Al Attiyah looked comfortable at the start of the day, the Qatari focused on extending his advantage with a more favourable position of fifth on the road. However, a sensor problem showed fluctuating water temperatures, dropping the Toyota into safe mode and forcing them to stop twice, losing them around 45 minutes. Once they solved the problem and got back going, the Qatari flew through the stage before stopping just before the finish to change a puncture.

“I’m happy to be here,” said Al Attiyah back at the bivouac. “We have lost time but this is racing and we have to accept what happens. After our problems, I somehow found another level [of speed] today! It was more than flat-out and with no mistakes.”

The Peterhansel MINI crew were second fastest through the section and, courtesy of their rivals’ problems, have moved from fourth to second with a comfortable advantage over Przygonski. “The day was okay, but we had one puncture,” said Stéphane.

“We are not quick enough to change the tyres and we need more training; it took us maybe four minutes, double the time it should. The navigation was okay and we tried to follow Yazeed [Al Rajhi] but he was too fast for us. Andrea and I need more kilometres together to be more confident, especially on the high-speed sections here. It’s very different to Abu Dhabi [where they won] but we are learning as every kilometre passes.”

Przygonski and Timo Gottschalk looked set to benefit from Al Attiyah’s time loss, until they too hit problems, as co-driver Gottschalk explained. “About 160 kilometres into the section I hesitated one second too long for a triple caution in the notes, we couldn’t slow and slid into a big hole and damaged the front end,” said the German.

“We somehow managed to get out of the hole but then the car started leaking fluid and we struggled to get going. I’m happy we got to the finish but it wasn’t a good stage for us, but for others also.”

The leading trio now have a huge advantage over fourth placed Miroslav Zapletal and Marek Sykora who were able to set the third fastest time in their Ford F-150 Evo following their rivals’ problems.

They have nearly 20 minutes in hand to the Russian MINI crew of Denis Krotov/Dmytro Tsyro, who also stopped to assist Przygonski in the section. The Kazakh crew of Andrey Cherednikov/Ignat Falkov have also moved a position up the leaderboard, to sixth, ahead of Yazeed Al Rajhi.

The Saudi Arabian driver opened the road today courtesy of his stage win yesterday and was one of the few crews to enjoy a reasonably clean section. He set the fastest time by more than four minutes to move from 10th to seventh. “It was all okay for us, but the navigation was very very difficult,” said the Hilux Overdrive pilot.

“It was difficult to open [the road] today and hard to see and find the route; we got lost in one place and had to do two loops before finding the right road. Other than this, and one puncture, it was okay.”

Reinaldo Varela and Gustavo Gugelmin continue to hold eighth in their Can Am Maverick, the Brazilians also leading the T3 category, now ahead of Spaniards Jose Luis Pena Campo and Rafael Tornabell in a Polaris RZR 1000. Fedor Vorobyev and Kirill Shubin round out the top 10 in another T3 Can Am Maverick. Mohammed Al Meer and Alexey Kuzmich are 11th and leading T2 in their Landcruiser.

Bernhard Ten Brinke and Tom Colsoul were another to have a disappointing day, the Dutch/Belgian pairing forced to abandon the stage after a catalogue of problems saw them forfeit their third position. “We began well and were very fast at the start and by 30 kilometres we were right behind Przygonski,” said Ten Brinke, who started fourth on the road behind the Pole.

“We pushed a lot and the first part of the dunes was good but then we broke the driveshaft and got stuck in the sand. It took us 30 minutes to get moving and then we had to change the driveshaft. After this, sensor alarms were going off and we got stuck in one gear. We stopped again and did a reset but then we could smell oil, or something, and decided to quit before really damaging the car.”

The final leg of Rally Kazakhstan on Saturday is the shortest and covers 148.76 competitive kilometres before returning to Aktau for the podium and prize-giving ceremony.

Rally Kazakhstan – Provisional results after Leg 5 (19:00 hrs local)