Al Attiyah and Quintanilla conquer the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge

Toyota and Honda took the lead in the 2023 Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge after an unprecedented track-covering first stage, leaving their plans unchanged for the car and motorcycle prologue winners. Respectively, Al-Attiyah and Quintanilla remain leaders.

qatari Nasser al-Attiyah (Toyota Gazoo Racing) did not expect their main rival to decline so quickly. Sebastian Loeb W2RC ranking leader Bahrain Raid Extreme stopped at the 39km mark due to trouble with the cooling system hose. He eventually left the stage, ending his hopes of winning at ADDC—a scenario that was already alive on the first day of last year.

Guerlain Sichelli, another Prodrive driver who was closest to the official Hilux at the first checkpoint, also had bad luck. The French stopped several times, suffering from dizziness from the dunes. At the end of the day, third overall in the championship, he decided to withdraw from the race.

The day ended successfully for Toyota. His three Hiluxes, Nasser Al Attiyah, Yazeed Al Rajhi and Henk Lategan, secured the podium and provisional standings for the day.

In T3, Seth Quintero (Red Bull Off-Road Junior Team USA) won ahead of teammate Austin Jones. He got second place under the special conditions of the world championship leader.Despite the challenge, the American didn’t hesitate to stop to help his teammates Christina Gutierrez (Red Bull Can-Am Factory), we ran out of gas. Mattias Ekström, who was second in this category for a long time, suffered the same misfortune as the Spaniard.

In T4, Locas Bachuska (Red Bull Can-Am Factory) won the stage. Finishing just five minutes behind the day’s leader and provisional standings, Pau Navarro (FN Speed) is already his biggest rival in this race.

By motorcycle, Pablo Quintanilla And his teammate Adrian van Bevelen (Monster Energy Honda), who was fastest in the prologue yesterday, once again dominated the day. I won. Ross Branch (Hero MotoSports) put him 3’14 inches away from the leaders as he finished third. Another Honda rider, ‘Nacho’ Cornejo, finished fourth in 4:16. Toby Price (Red Bull KTM Factory Racing) was 5th in 4’37”. In the general classification, after the first stage, the day’s time and the prologue time are divided by a factor of 8 as defined by the championship regulations. Add up and Quintanilla is in the lead: “VBA” is 2’16” and Price is 5’17”, with Branch in 4th, just 3 seconds behind the official KTM rider.

Rally2 Paolo Lucci (BAS World KTM Racing) took the lead on the day ahead of Konrad Dabrowski (Dust Divers Racing) who finished five feet behind. In the general classification, Paul is less than two minutes behind the Italian. Jean-Loup Lepan (Duust Diverse Racing) is 8’35” and he is third. ToniMulec (BAS World KTM Racing) runs out of fuel before he can refuel, putting him 35 minutes behind the leader. came in 4th place.

In quads, Abdulaziz Ahli It lived up to expectations. He overtook Rodolfo Guilioli for over 20 minutes in the special and general. Laisvydas Kancius was forced to stop. The Lithuanian is almost four minutes from the Emirati he is three hours.