Lusail, Qatar – Nasser al Attiyah and his Spanish co-driver Candido Carrera won five of the 13 special stages on the way to a resounding victory in the Qatar International Rally on Saturday.

A second success of the Qatari’s 2025 campaign to win a 20th FIA Middle East Rally Championship (MERC) title also marked his 18th in Qatar from 25 starts and gives him a strong foundation on which to build this year’s title challenge in his Autotek-run Škoda Fabia RS. The win was the 88th in his illustrious MERC career.

A delighted Al Attiyah said: “I am really happy to win this race. It is a home rally and we did a good job. I am happy with Candido and the team. It is a nice start for 2025. Just 0.8 (seconds) between me and Mads on the Power Stage. It was a good level.”

On his fourth visit to the event, Mads Ostberg finished as runner-up for a third year in succession after failing to finish on his first appearance in 2022. Punctures on Friday put paid to an aggressive challenge by the Norwegian and his Romanian co-driver Sergiu Itu but the crew won eight of the 13 stages, including a clean sweep of six fastest times over the final day to finish 1min 12.8sec behind Al Attiyah.

Abdulaziz Al-Kuwari and Lorcan Moore ceded second to Østberg on the first stage of the morning but were able to fend off a fierce late challenge from Abdullah Al-Rawahi and Ata Al-Hmoud to claim the final place on the podium and a vital haul of MERC points in their Citroën C3 by just 3.3 seconds. But the Qatari was handed a five-second penalty on Saturday evening and that dropped him to fourth place.

Al Rawahi was pleasantly surprised to gain third place after the finish. The Omani said: “We pushed like crazy, just three seconds away (before the penalty for Al Kuwari). Unfortunately, we lost some time on one stage and we had a lot of punctures on the first day, Anyway, I am happy with this performance. The pace is there but I got some penalties and I was quite unlucky with the punctures.”

Rakan al Rashed enjoyed his first appearance in Qatar and managed his pace sensibly over the two days of high-speed action in the northern deserts to finish fifth overall in a Toyota GR Yaris Rally 2 with Portuguese co-driver Hugo Magalhães. Coupled with his runner-up spot at round one in Oman, Al-Rashed is now in a strong position to challenge championship leader Al Attiyah this season.

The Saudi said: “I am happy to be here. Obviously, it’s unclear where my pace is. I am still getting confused. After this rally we are going to have to review all the weekend and see where we can improve. I’m happy that we finished and looking forward now to my home event.”

Nasser Khalifa al Atya is chasing Masters Championship and MERC points with Lebanese co-driver Ziad Chehab in a Motortune Ford Fiesta. He surrendered sixth overall to a hard-charging Denis Krotov and Yury Kulikov in their SRT Škoda Fabia RS but earned a second win in the new Masters Championship and collected valuable MERC points to boot with seventh overall.

Rashid al Muhannadi guided his Peugeot 208 Rally 4 to a second successive victory in the MERC4 category. The Qatari teamed up with Irishman Gary Mcelhinney again to finish eighth. 

The battle for supremacy in MERC2 developed into a showdown between the Omani duo of Abdullah al Zubair and Zakariya al Aamri. Mechanical issues sidelined Al-Zubair before the penultimate stage and that opened the door for Al Aamri to claim the win and 10th overall behind ninth-placed Jordanian driver Shadi Shaban.

Jad al Aawar and Ahmad Khaled were second and fourth in MERC2 and 11th and 13th overall with Kuwait’s Jassim al Muqahwi sandwiched between the Lebanese duo.

His Excellency Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al Thani, Minister of Sports and Youth, attended the start of the rally along with His Excellency Abdullah bin Hamad al Attiyah, Minister of Municipality.