Yazeed wins stage, Nasser takes overall lead

KENDERLY: Saudi Arabia’s Yazeed Al Rajhi put his day one accident to the back of his mind to claim the fastest time on the second selective section of Rally Kazakhstan between Aktau City and Kenderly on Monday.

But, with the Mini All4 Racing driver already heavily penalised by 100 hours for missing most of the opening day’s competitive action, Qatar’s Nasser Saleh Al Attiyah driving an Overdrive Racing Toyota Hilux – was able to snatch the overall lead from Poland’s Jakub Przygonski.

The day’s 368km stage wound its way in a loop via the town of Ushtagan and south of the remote oil and gas hub of Zhanaozen to finish 28.5km north of the Kenderly Sea Resort. There were two passage controls, near Ushtagan after 102.92km, and east of Zhanaozen at 223.22km. A stretch of sand dunes before the first checkpoint caused numerous problems for the T2 drivers and the local amateur entrants.

Nasser and French navigator Matthieu Baumel now lead the event by 3min 39sec from Przygonski in the second Mini. “To lead the rally is the most important thing,” said Nasser at the blustery Kenderly outpost adjacent to the Caspian Sea in southwest Kazakhstan. “Yazeed is very far behind and he won the stage. But my target is to make a good race and now we are leading by a good time. We try to keep going like this because this rally is very new and not easy. Never have we been in an area like this, but we are quite happy. The dunes were not easy. Never in my life have I seen dunes like this.”

Flat tyres were Przygonski’s bugbear on a stage where even the scale of the dunes caught the Pole by surprise.

Fellow Pole Aron Domzala managed to fend off a strong challenge from the Hummer H3 driver Miroslav Zapletal to hold on to third place in the second of the Overdrive Toyotas. Last year’s winner Yuriy Sazonov consolidated his fifth position with the seventh quickest time and fellow Kazakh Yerden Shagirov maintained sixth.

Lithuania’s Antanas Juknevicius benefited from the sixth quickest time to close the gap on Shagirov and Qatar’s Mohamed Issa Abu Issa overcame delays early in the stage to set the ninth quickest time and move into an unofficial eighth overall.

Saudi Arabia’s Yasir Saeidan managed to pull further clear of Qatar’s Adel Abdulla after the tricky sand dunes cost the T2 runners a lot of time. Press Release