Qatar Motor and Motorcycle Federation (QMMF) President Abdulrahman Al Mannai (left) greets Qatar’s star rally driver Nasser Saleh Al Attiyah during a felicitation ceremony held on Thursday. (Photo: Salim Matramkot)
Defending champion Nasser Saleh Al Attiyah just needs six points to nail the FIA World Cup for Cross-Country Rally title once again but for the star Qatari rally driver there’s something else on his New Year’s wish-list: the 2018 Dakar Rally.
Last week, the 47-year-old won the FIA Middle East Championship for the 13th time following his win in Iran but Al Attiyah is already looking at the next edition of the Dakar Rally, the world’s most gruelling off-road challenge for drivers and riders.
“Yes, it is my dream to win this race once again because Dakar Rally is one of the biggest off-road challenges. I will do everything my power to win this race again,” Al Attiyah told The Peninsula in an exclusive chat yesterday.
Al Attiyah, a bronze medallist at the 2012 Olympic Games shooting competition, is a two-time Dakar Rally champion.
“When I won the Dakar title in 2015, it was great to receive a call from the Emir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani. The Emir said ‘well done’ and those words felt so great to me. It was a great moment for me,” he added.
Excerpts from a detailed chat with Qatar’s top rally driver.
Question: How do you intend to prepare for next year’s Dakar Rally?
Answer: This time we will be racing in Bolivia for three days. It’s a high altitude place - more than 5000 metres above sea level. It will be difficult for everybody. It sure won’t be easy for the competitors. This time I will be working on my high altitude fitness at Aspetar. They have a lot of rooms used for high altitude training. I will be in Aspetar for two weeks in one go. I will be camped there in December. The training digits start from 2000 metres and then we jack it up to 5000 meters for 15 days. After that I will fly to Peru as we start the Dakar Rally there and we finish in Buenos Aires.
Q: So clearly this is your big target early next year?
A: Yes, it is my dream to win this race once again because Dakar Rally is one of the biggest off-road challenges. I will do everything in my power to win this race again. It is my target for the next edition. It means everything for me because this is our target - to go there and win the biggest race in the world. When I won the Dakar title in 2015, it was great to receive a call from the Emir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani. The Emir said ‘well done’ and those words felt so great to me. Also, my fellow Qataris wished me well. It was a fantastic day for me and my country. I feel honoured to have Tamim Al Majd portrait on my car. The logo is a reflection of our support for the Emir.
Q: What are your plans for the next few weeks?
A: I still have the Morocco race to take care of. It is part of the FIA Cross-Country World Championship. We will test our new car for the Dakar Rally. I am leading the World Championship points table. I hope to win this title again as I need six points from the last leg. We will try to win the race. After this we will prepare for the Dakar Rally. This will be the last race for me to test the car. I will also compete in a small scale race in Johannesburg in South Africa. And then we need to be completely ready for Dakar.
Q: How do you look back at your last Dakar Rally?
A: This year in Dakar Rally I was leading the championship. It was a small mistake from my team. We had to stop as we ran out of fuel. It was an error on the dashboard computer. And then we got fuel from a bike rider and completed the race. This happened 50 kilometres from the finish. I was constantly pushing to close the time gap. Drivers make mistakes. I made a mistake. That mistake cost us a time of 6 hours. But the team decided not to continue for safety reasons. I push for podium at every event but the team was wary that we might have crashed or risked injury. It’s better to stop and recover and come back again. We came back really strong as we won all the races after that. We won the FIA Middle East Championship race. We are leading the championship with 240 points (Poland’s Jakub Przygonski is in second place with 159 points).
Q: Is it getting any easier to compete at your age of 47?
A: You know it is not easy at my age 47 (smiles). But I enjoy what I do. I run everyday 10 kilometers. I do cycling. I go for swimming. We have Aspetar to take care of athletes like me. Sometimes it is not easy for me but in pro sport you have to be strong. Most of the people think we are only drivers or that we may not need fitness (smiles). But that’s not true. Even the bike racers. There’s a lot of fitness training to be done to be in top shape. They all have very high of fitness. Every sport is like that. But we enjoy what we do. Considering how tough it gets with advancing age, it is a big achievement even for me (to win the 13th crown). A lot of effort has gone into getting to this place.
