Al Attiyah Wins His Third Dakar Rally

Lima, January 17 (QNA) - Qatar's champion Nasser Al Attiyah has won his third Dakar Rally in the 2019 edition of the race. Al Attiyah, who previously won the Dakar with Volkswagen in 2011 and Mini four years after that, switched to driving a Toyota Hilux ahead of the '17 race. Al Attiyah led the general classification on each day of the rally but the second, when his Toyota team-mate Giniel de Villiers briefly headed the rankings instead before being ruled out of victory contention by a rock incident the day after. As all of his other main rivals encountered numerous problems, Al Attiyah's lead ballooned gradually. On Thursday he completed the final 70-mile test between Pisco and Lima to win by 46m42s over nearest rival Nani Roma. Unsurprisingly, in light of the lead he had going into the last stage, Nasser Al Attiyah won his third Dakar in Pisco. Al Attiyah was Twelfth to finish 9' behind Carlos Sainz at the finish of the last special and offers Toyota its first victory in the car category. "It's fantastic. No mistakes during the entire rally. It was a very, very difficult rally for everybody. The good thing was that from day three we were leading and we built on our time every day until we came to the last day with a big, big lead. I'm really happy - thanks to Toyota, thanks to BF Goodrich tyres, all the sponsors, Qatar, Red Bull. It made everything happen right for this year. I'm happy for Toyota because it's the first time in the history of Toyota that they won the Dakar, this is fantastic. On being the favourite It's like what I always say, we respect all the other drivers. All the drivers are really very strong. Everybody wants to win the Dakar. But we felt when we came that in Peru, a 100% Peru rally, with no other country, there would be a lot of sand dunes, so we could do what we know we're good at. We're leading from day three and, yeah, I'm really quite happy. On avoiding mistakes those others made this is the adventure of the rally. The rally is not easy and if you push every day, sure, you will have a problem with the car. I'm really happy to win this race with Toyota". (QNA)