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The UAE’s Sheikh Khalid Al Qassimi is prepared for one of the toughest examinations of his World Rally Championship career when the Rally de Portugal gets under way on Thursday.
Partnered by British co-driver Scott Martin in his Abu Dhabi Citroën Total World Rally Team DS3 WRC, Al Qassimi believes the fourth round on this year’s WRC calendar will be the most physically demanding of the season.
The biggest concern for Al Qassimi - and one shared by many of the other 70 drivers set to start Thursday’s qualifying stage - is a 52.3km brute of a competitive section which he must negotiate twice in just over four hours on Sunday’s final leg.
Bringing together the best of two special stages in last year’s route, the new Almodôvar stage will be one of the longest European gravel stages of the 2013 WRC campaign. Amazingly, the duration of the demanding test has the potential to make a rally driver’s hands bleed.
“In my entire rallying career I have never done a 52km stage,” said Al Qassimi, who underwent a day of testing in Portugal in his Abu Dhabi Citroën DS3 WRC at the end of last month. “During testing, I tried to do a loop of 30km on a very technical, narrow road and by the end of it my hands had blisters and were really hurting.”
“You have to be in very good shape and really focused to do a 53 km stage twice in one day over a short period of time. Otherwise you are going to lose it for sure.”
Friday will be another demanding day in Portugal, with huge road sections to be completed either side of the evening super special stage in Lisbon which follows two standard special stages of just over 20km and 18km that are being run twice earlier in the day.
“After those first four stages, we hit the road to Lisbon about 250km away and as soon as we’ve done the super special stage there we go back another 300km to where the rally re-starts the next day,” said Al Qassimi. “The last time I was in Portugal they put the cars on trucks for that section but we have to drive it this time. It’s going to be a long day.”
After a test session in dry conditions, Al Qassimi hopes recent rain in Portugal passes by the time he and co-driver Martin begin their two-day recce tomorrow (Tuesday) and that there is no sudden shift in weather conditions when the rally starts.
“If you test and recce in the dry, the last thing you need is for it to start raining as soon as the rally gets under way because it then becomes a different event and your pace notes are no good,” he said.
Despite the high degree of difficulty and the fact this is only his second WRC event after a 15-month gap, Al Qassimi is targeting a third top-ten finish in Rally de Portugal after placing eighth in 2009 and ninth in 2010. He also has high hopes that the pairings of Mikko Hirvonen and Jarmo Lehtinen, and Dani Sordo and Carlos del Barrio, can extend the lead for the Citroën Total Abu Dhabi World Rally Team in the WRC manufacturers’ championship.
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