Nasser Al-Attiyah could be forgiven for wishing he was back in 2023. Back then he won things like Dakar and the Qatar International Rally. This time around, those events have just gone south.
First, it was Saudi and a Dakar departed early after the most successful driver in the history of the Middle East Rally Championship refused to get back in a Prodrive Hunter which had given trouble through week one.
And now this. Stewards at the season’s opening MERC considered the Qatari to have retired from the overall classification after he was discovered to have driven almost 18 miles with no tire on the left rear of his Volkswagen Polo R5. Al-Attiyah’s hopes of a maiden 2024 victory have all but disappeared for this week – but he does have the right to appeal the stewards’ decision.
Running without four rotating wheels on a road section is a contravention of the FIA’s sporting regulations. The expectation is that a damaged tire will be changed immediately out of the stage – marks on the road from the end of the fourth stage back to service (a distance of 18 miles) indicate the tire wasn’t changed.
Al-Attiyah arrived at the service park on this tire. But he'd waited too long to change over to it, according to the stewards
The regulation states that any competitor not complying with the four rotating wheels rule is considered to have retired.
Returning under superally regulations brings a 30-minute penalty which will drop Al-Attiyah from a 5.6-second lead over Pierre-Louis Loubet to 19th overall.
Al-Attiyah’s puncture leaves the door open for Loubet to score his first outright rally win in almost five years. The former M-Sport Ford factory WRC driver sits 22.7s ahead of fellow Škoda Fabia RS Rally2 driver Mads Østberg ahead of Saturday’s final six stages.
