Qatari driver Nasser Al Attiyah and his French navigator Mathieu Baumel in action during the penultimate leg of Rally Kazakhstan in Aktau, yesterday.
Akatu: Nasser Al Attiyah and Mathieu Baumel have remarkably clung onto their Rally Kazakhstan lead, despite problems during the fifth leg today, and they 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.
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. 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 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.
