Muscat – Oman’s Abdullah al Rawahi was delighted to have won the final spot on the podium of the Qatar International Rally in Lusail on Saturday after Abdulaziz Al Kuwari was handed a time penalty of five seconds.

 Al Kuwari and Lorcan Moore were able to fend off a fierce late challenge from Al Rawahi and Ata Al Hmoud in their  Skoda Fabia RS Rally 2 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, dropping him to fourth place.

Al Rawahi expressed his happiness at finishing third. He said the race was not easy due to the intensity of the competition and the tough stages.

“We were quite good on the first stage,” said Al Rawahi, pleasantly surprised to gain third place after the finish.

“Then we tried to push on the second one and there was a place with a lot of dust coming to a hairpin. I tried to take it flat so I don’t lose time and I lost the track and around 15 seconds. That was a pity. We started the last stage and tried to push again and managed to get 10 seconds on Abdulaziz.

“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,” said the Omani.

Meanwhile, another Omani, Zakaria al Amri and his co-driver Mohammed al Mazroui won the MERC2 category and finished 10th overall.

AlAmri was happy with his performance said he would continue the championship with the same strategy.

Abdullah al Zubair and his co-driver, Taha Soomar, had a strong start and was able to lead the MERC2 category. He continued to put up impressive performances on the second day, in the morning stages, but he was unable to finish the race after a sudden mechanical failure in the gearbox led him to withdraw from the rally.

“We were taking well and a clear strategy, and on the first day we topped the category, but we faced a problem with the gearbox in the second period of the second day, and we had no choice but to withdraw from the rally. I want to congratulate my colleague Zakaria Al Amri for topping the category,” said Al Zubair.