2023 Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge: Trouble strikes leaders in Stage 3

Nasser Al-Attiyah has dominated the World Rally-Raid Championship since its beginning, winning both editions of the Dakar Rally under its sanction and the inaugural T1 title, to the point where something was bound to go wrong for him eventually.

That upending moment occurred on Wednesday, metaphorically and literally, when he was ten kilometres away from winning the third stage of the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge only to flip his Toyota Hilux T1+ upon hitting a dune and overshooting the landing. Despite ending up on his wheels and reaching the finish in first, the truck’s rear, roof, and windscreen were torn apart in the accident. Neither Al-Attiyah nor his co-driver Mathieu Baumel were injured, but the FIA ruled the Hilux’s rollcage was too damaged to continue.

Al-Attiyah has long been a model of consistency in the face of rally raid’s treacherous nature. His last retirement from an FIA-sanctioned international rally raid, which includes the current W2RC and its preceding World Cup for Cross-Country Rallies, prior to Abu Dhabi was the 2014 Baja España Aragón. By exiting the ADDC entirely, Al-Attiyah also loses the fifteen points he earned from winning the Prologue and first two legs, allowing Sébastien Loeb to retain the W2RC T1 championship lead despite also being out of overall rally contention following his Stage #1 bowing out and fifty-hour time penalty for a subsequent engine change.

With Al-Attiyah’s elimination, fellow Hilux driver Yazeed Al-Rajhi will inherit the ADDC T1 overall lead for Stage #4 with a nine-minute, forty-one-second advantage over Martin Prokop.

Misfortune also struck frontrunners elsewhere, such Stage #3 T3 winner Mattias Ekström whose engine expired after sixty-six kilometres. Ekström had been leading early into Wednesday until the motor gave way, which the Red Bulls capitalised upon as Mitch Guthrie led Cristina Gutiérrez and Seth Quintero; the trio has swept the T3 podium in every leg but the third.

Even two-wheeled vehicles—on the second stage under marathon conditions—were not safe from trouble as Pablo Quintanilla lost the RallyGP stage win to Toby Price after receiving a two-minute speeding penalty, dropping him behind Price by just sixteen seconds with Skyler Howes three seconds off of Quintanilla. The infraction also enabled Adrien Van Beveren to stay ahead of his Honda team-mate for the overall by forty-three seconds.

“Didn’t expect that today with the pace but I’ll take it,” said Price. “I never really look at overall results until the last day but I think we are sitting well, we’ll see what the last two days in Abu Dhabi bring.”

Stage #3 winners

Leaders after Stage #3

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