Motor Sport December 2007

Speed on sand

There were heroics and heartbreak aplenty at this year’s UAE Desert Challenge.

Tommy Simmons reports

The dust has settled for another year on the UAE Desert Challenge and this year’s event saw gun drivers from France and Spain take out the big prizes. Winning this year’s 2,210km event for an impressive fourth time was French star Stephane Peterhansel at the wheel of a Mitsubishi Pajero Evolution.

Celebrating at the finish at Dubai International Marine Club with co-driver Jean-Paul Cottret, Peterhansel said his plan was to win the event with caution to stand himself in good stead for the Dakar Rally: “I always tried the steady approach and I think it was a good strategy,” he said after the race.

Meanwhile, Spain’s Carlos Sainz won the drivers’ title in the FIA Cross Country Rally World Cup. Sainz, who was World Rally Champion in 1990 and 1992, also used the Desert Challenge as an important precursor to Dakar: “It’s good to win the World Cup. It’s important for me and this rally is good practice for the Dakar.”

Luc Alphand’s spectacular crash at ADNOC Special Stage 4 of the event also helped Sainz’s quest for domination this year.

Another Spaniard, Marc Coma, hung on to his bikes title, wining by five minutes and six seconds in the end, continuing his dominance of the FIM Cross Country Rallies World Championship among those who prefer two wheels to four. But he admitted to the media after the race that it wasn’t an easy event and one mistake could have ruined everything. Sainz’s VW team-mate Giniel de Villiers of South Africa finished third overall.

Naturally, the 2007 Challenge had its share of drama with Qatar’s Nasser Al-Attiyah almost clinching second place overall until he was stymied by an electrical failure on his BMW X3. Tragically, he was just 20km from finishing the final Emarat Special Stage 6. There was also heartbreak as the UAE’s Yahya Alhelei almost became a local hero until his radiator packed it in on the last leg of Hertz Special Stage 5. But Alhelei still managed to solider on and came home a respectable fifth place in his Liberty Prototype. Russia’s Leonid Novitskiy in a Mitsubishi MPR 96 and France’s Nicolas Giboon in a Toyota Land Cruiser rounded out the top six.

In the FIA World Cup manufacturers championship, title-holders, Mitsubishi, tied in a controversial dead heat with Volkwagen who claimed the title on a points countback. As the penultimate Hertz Special Stage 5 got under way, Volkswagen knew that if Sainz held on to second place overall behind Peterhansel, they would finish in a tie with Mitsubishi in the manufacturers’ championship. Expect further debate over who is the true title-holder on this one for some time to come.

There was further high drama on the final day when yet another Spanish star, Jose Luis Monterde, exited the Challenge in life-threatening style. During the Emarat Special Stage, he rolled his Schlesser Buggy at high speed and was lucky to escape the stack with minor head and hand injuries. As a precaution, both Monterde and his co-driver were evacuated by helicopter to Tawam Hospital in Al Ain.

Winning the trucks title and coming home a decent ninth overall was Firdaus Kabirov in a factory Kamaz. He was nearly pipped at the post by Rustam Minnikhanov, who, in his spare time, is Prime Minister of the republic of Tatarstan, part of the former Soviet Union. But sadly for the politician-cum-truckie, he was forced to retire his own Kamaz on the final leg, missing out on his fifth trucks title in six years.
The quads crown was taken out by Sebastian Husseini of the Netherlands, who came 10th overall in the bikes category.

With Dakar to look forward to, it’s onwards and upwards for most of the desert speed demons. The only hitch for some drivers, especially locally based dune bashers, is the lack of sponsorship. Here’s hoping a few generous corporates will come to the party with some much-needed cash for some of the smaller teams so that we can look forward to an equally spectacular – and sometimes controversial – UAE Desert Challenge for 2008.