2023 Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge: Yazeed Al-Rajhi becomes first Saudi ADDC winner in T1

Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates might be neighbouring countries, but a Saudi competitor had never won the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge‘s overall until 2023 courtesy of Yazeed Al-Rajhi.

One could argue victory had slipped into Al-Rajhi’s grasp as Nasser Al-Attiyah and Sébastien Loeb—who have been the top teams in the World Rally-Raid Championship since its inception and comprised the top two in the standings—were struck by misfortune that took them out of contention, but he maximised his opportunity when it opened. Al-Attiyah, the Dakar Rally winner and three-time ADDC champion, had dominated by winning the Prologue and first three stages before flipping in Stage #3; despite making it to the finish and winning the leg, his Toyota Hilux T1+ was too damaged to continue.

A cooling pipe was Loeb’s downfall in just the first stage. Unlike Al-Attiyah, Loeb’s problem was somewhat solvable and he rejoined the race, though a fifty-hour penalty was imposed for him changing his engine block. Loeb’s team-mate Guerlain Chicherit withdrew after Stage #1 due to motion sickness.

Al-Rajhi did not win any of the five stages, but his consistency placed him in prime position to capitalise on his rivals’ troubles. He finished second in Stages #1 and #2, fourth in Stage #3, and third in Stage #4 with the lattermost being his first leg as the overall leader. Entering the fifth and final leg, he led Martin Prokop by over ten minutes, a gap that Prokop was unable to close as he instead finished two minutes behind Al-Rajhi.

Despite being one of the top drivers in the FIA World Cup for Cross-Country Bajas, of which he is the reigning champion, Al-Rajhi was often stuck playing third fiddle to Al-Attiyah and Loeb in the W2RC. Although somewhat circumstantial due to the two’s elimination, he finally secured his spot atop the podium for the first time since the W2RC’s formation. It is also a strong comeback after he missed the FIA World Cup season opener in early February due to broken ribs in a post-Dakar skiing accident.

“Praise be to God, by the grace and success of God, I achieved first place today in the world championship round held in Abu Dhabi in the desert of the Empty Quarter,” posted Al-Rajhi. “With this achievement, I am the first Saudi to win this difficult and dangerous rally over the past 32 years.”

While placing a distant eleventh in the general classification, Loeb simply reaching the finish was a major boon for his W2RC points lead as he scrounged together fourteen bonus points for his stage finishes, including winning the fourth. Al-Attiyah’s three stage victories plus the Prologue do not count for his championship total due to his retirement, leaving him sixteen points back of Loeb.

“We’ve taken some very good points for the championship and that’s the best we could expect when we got here in coming away with the lead intact,” Loeb commented. “We’ve increased our lead fromtwo to sixteen points so I think we have to be happy after the problems we had early on in the event.”

Interestingly, every T1 stage winner ended up at the bottom of the overall due to stage retirements. Henk Lategan, Al-Attiyah’s Toyota Gazoo Racing team-mate and the only other stage winner when he took the fifth, bowed out of Stage #2 due to an issue with his Hilux’s turbo.

“Overall, the 2023 Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge did not yield the result we had hoped for from Nasser and Mathieu (Baumel), but they will be back in the fight at Round 3, the Sonora Rally in Mexico,” said TGR principal Alain Dujardyn. “As for Henk and Brett (Cummings), they learnt a lot from their experience here in Abu Dhabi, and we are encouraged by their overall pace.”

Of the four T1 drivers not competing for W2RC points, Khalid Al Qassimi was the best finisher in fifth overall. Lategan was the only other finisher of the quartet though marred by the turbo failure.

Oriol Mena, who won the Dakar Rally T4 as co-driver to Eryk Goczał, placed seventh in his first T1+ start alongside Guoyu Zhang. Despite the language barrier, with Zhang not speaking English while Mena doesn’t know Chinese, the two “improvised” with “simple words that has worked for us”. Zhang and fellow Chinese driver Zi Yunliang were the last in T1 to finish the race without attaining penalties.

T1 overall results

Finish	Number	Driver	Co-Driver	Team	Time	Margin
1	207	Yazeed Al-Rajhi	Timo Gottschalk	Overdrive Racing	16:28:06	Leader
2	203	Martin Prokop	Viktor Chytka	ORLEN Benzina Team	16:40:37	+ 12:31
3	204	Juan Cruz Yacopini	Dani Oliveiras	Overdrive Racing	17:01:03	+ 32:57
4	205	Sebastian Halpern	Bernardo Graue	X-raid Team	17:02:35	+ 34:29
5	214	Khalid Al Qassimi*	Ola Floene	Abu Dhabi Team	17:17:30	+ 49:24
6	206	Wei Han	Ma Li	Hanwei Motorsport	18:09:34	+ 1:41:28
7	209	Guoyu Zhang	Oriol Mena	Overdrive Racing/BAIC ORV	18:12:52	+ 1:44:46
8	210	Zi Yunliang	Sha He	BAIC ORV	21:32:34	+ 5:04:28
9	211	Henk Lategan*	Brett Cummings	Toyota Gazoo Racing	38:14:58	+ 21:46:52
10	213	Magdalena Zajac	Jacek Czachor	Proxcars TME Rally Team	50:41:40	+ 34:13:34
11	200	Sébastien Loeb	Fabian Lurquin	Bahrain Raid Xtreme	87:30:17	+ 71:02:11
DNF	201	Nasser Al-Attiyah	Mathieu Baumel	Toyota Gazoo Racing	DNF	N/A
DNF	202	Guerlain Chicherit	Alex Winocq	GCK Motorsport	DNF	N/A
DNF	208	Denis Krotov	Konstantin Zhiltsov	X-raid Team	DNF	N/A
DNF	212	Po Tian	Du Xuanyi	Hanwei Motorsport	DNF	N/A
DNF	215	Yahya Al-Helei*	Khalid Al-Kendi	Yahya Al-Helei	DNF	N/A
DNF	216	Abdulla Al-Zubair*	Faisal Al-Raisi	Abdulla Al-Zubair	DNF	N/A

* – Not competing in World Rally-Raid Championship

T1 stage winners

Stage	Number	Driver	Team	Time
Prologue	201	Nasser Al-Attiyah	Toyota Gazoo Racing	4:45
Stage #1	201	Nasser Al-Attiyah	Toyota Gazoo Racing	3:13:36
Stage #2	201	Nasser Al-Attiyah	Toyota Gazoo Racing	3:33:39
Stage #3	201	Nasser Al-Attiyah	Toyota Gazoo Racing	3:51:45
Stage #4	200	Sébastien Loeb	Bahrain Raid Xtreme	2:28:10
Stage #5	211	Henk Lategan*	Toyota Gazoo Racing	2:36:11

Overall winners

Class	Number	Competitor	Team	Time
T1	207	Yazeed Al-Rajhi	Overdrive Racing	16:28:06
T3	302	Seth Quintero	Red Bull Off-Road Junior Team	16:58:31
T4	400	Rokas Baciuška	Red Bull Can-Am Factory Racing	17:25:47
RallyGP	42	Adrien Van Beveren	Monster Energy Honda Rally Team	17:13:39
Rally2	96	Tobias Ebster*	SRG Motorsports	2:36:51
Quad	174	Abdulaziz Ahli	Abu Dhabi Team	22:01:51