Motor Sports December 2008

Ruler’s Court powers Dubai rally success story

Event’s 30-year milestone

By Manila Chansmouth

After four decades of support from the Dubai Ruler’s Court, the Dubai International Rally was reaching a milestone with Mohammed Ben Sulayem pledging that the event will remain a key fixture on the UAE’s expanding motor sport calendar in the future.

Mohammed Ben Sulayem

The traditional last round of the FIA Middle East Rally Championship was celebrating its 30th anniversary at the time Total Sport was going to press. This is a time when motor sport in the Emirates is entering a new era, with Abu Dhabi joining the Formula One World Championship next year.

“Ever since the Dubai International Rally was launched in 1978, the event has enjoyed vital support from the Dubai Ruler’s Court,” said Sulayem, President of the Automobile and Touring Club of the UAE, the rally organisers. “Thanks to the Government of Dubai, it has set the standard for FIA Middle East Championship rallying over the years, and is now the longest running international sporting event in the UAE.

“The motor sport scene here has changed dramatically in recent years and there are so many new events and disciplines now. But the Dubai Rally is an important part of our sporting history and will always be one of our flagship events.”

The last of seven rounds in this year’s FIA Middle East Championship were to take place from November 27-29 under the patronage of H H Shaikh Majed bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum.

While Qatar’s Nasser Al Attiyah had already wrapped up the regional drivers’ crown for the fourth year in a row, Sulayem said there plenty was at stake.

“The Dubai Rally title is one of the biggest prizes in Middle East rallying,” said Sulayem, who won the event 15 times. “Winning it is a great way to round off the season, and give yourself a big boost ready for the start of another new campaign.”

Following previous rounds in Qatar, Cyprus, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan, Al Attiyah clinched the Middle East title with his sixth consecutive victory in the recent Troodos Rally in Cyprus. The UAE’s Sheikh Khalid Al Qassimi, winner of the event in 2005 and 2006, is seen as the biggest threat to the Qatari’s bid for a second straight win in Dubai.

Meanwhile, four other drivers were to go into the event to battle for the two remaining championship podium places. Qatar’s Misfer Al Marri currently holds second place in the series, but Lebanese driver Nick Georgiou is just a point away in third, with Oman’s Nizar Al Shanfari and Cypriot Nicos Thomas also in the hunt.

The Dubai Rally rounds off an eventful two months for Sulayem and the ATCUAE, which is the sole official representative in the UAE of the FIA, the world governing body of motor sport, and its motor bike and classic car counterparts, the FIM and FIVA.

After staging a highly successful 18th edition of the UAE Desert Challenge, Sulayem was named recently as vice president of the FIA for Sport and became the first Arab to be elected to the FIA World Motor Sport Council.

When he took charge of the ATCUAE in 2006 only 90 competitors in the UAE had official licences to compete in motor sport – most of them in rallying – and there were fewer than 20 official events staged per year. Today, the ATCUAE has more than 1,200 licensed competitors and oversees a calendar of 140 motor sport events.

Mohammed Ben Sulayem has been receiving tributes and messages of congratulations from across the Middle East after becoming the first Arab to be elected to the FIA World Motor Sport Council. Ben Sulayem is even bigger news than he was when he was dominating the rallying scene.

Sulayem with FIA president Max Mosley at the FIA General Assembly in Paris.

Sulayem, president of the Automobile and Touring Club of the UAE and the Arab world’s most successful rally driver, was named as vice president of the FIA for Sport by the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile at the recent FIA General Assembly in Paris.

Last month he was invited to the Al Bateen Palace in Abu Dhabi to receive the personal congratulations of UAE President H H Shaikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

Sulayem’s appointment produced sports headlines across the Middle East, and he has been inundated with requests for media interviews, while tributes and congratulatory messages have poured in from regional motor sport officials.

HRH Prince Feisal Al Hussein, chairman of Jordan Motorsport, said: “Mohammed Ben Sulayem has been a close friend of Jordan ever since his first rally victory here all those years ago (1984).

“We were also delighted for Mohammed to become an ambassador for our WRC bid and he played a key role in us becoming the region’s first round earlier this year. On behalf of the Jordan motor sport community, I would like to thank Mohammed for all his efforts and hard work and congratulate him on this deserved appointment.”

In a joint message, Jacques Salha, vice president of the Automobile and Touring Club of Lebanon – and director of ASN. Gaby Kreiker, said Sulayem’s success as a rally driver had made him the pride of the Middle East, and congratulated him on his FIA appointment “for what you have earned and for what you deserve.”

In a letter to Sulayem, Brigadier Salim Ali Khalifa Al-Maskiry, director of the Oman Automobile Association, said: “We can be proud while considering that you are the first person from the Arab region to hold this prestigious post in more than 100 years of history of the FIA. The admiration for your achievement is felt by all of us within the association, and within the motorsport community of the Arab World.”

In another congratulatory letter, Misha’al bin Fahed Al Sudeiri, president of the Saudi Arabian Automobile and Touring Association, told Sulayem his FIA appointment “comes as a reward to your continuous excellence in motor sport.”

Regional press reports said the FIA appointment underlined Sulayem’s status as the leading motor sport figure in the Middle East, and recognised the influential role he has played in taking world championship motor sport to the region.