It’s 14 years since the World Rally Championship left the Middle East. Until November. Back on the calendar for the first time since 2011, the region is working hard to have Saudi Arabia ready in six months.
But what about the legacy? What about when the WRC’s been and gone? What will rallying’s elite bring to Jeddah and beyond?
“The aim is to leave the volunteers and the organizing team on the ground in Saudi Arabia with the know-how to run a world championship rally.”
That’s the word of FIA road sport director Emilia Abel. She’s the strongest advocate of teaching people to fish, rather than feeding them a fish.
“We don’t want to go there and take a team of people to deliver the event for people in Saudi Arabia,” Abel told DirtFish. “The point is to educate and to aim to leave the event with people wiser in the sport and more empowered in how to run rallies.
Could Nasser Al-Attiyah start this year's WRC finale in a Rally1 car?
“Ultimately, we are never going to go to this event (Rally Saudi Arabia) and take all of the marshals and stage commanders with us. They have to deliver this event, but we have to educate them, we have to work with the ASN in how to do that – with the specific focus on safety and the sporting side. We have six months and that’s what we’re going to be doing.”
Nasser Al-Attiyah won last month’s Saudi Arabian candidate event and talked immediately of his desire to step up to a frontline Rally1 car for the WRC counter scheduled for November 27-30. Based out of the Jeddah Corniche Circuit, this year’s series finale is expected to deliver a sting in the tail with some of the season’s roughest and toughest stages across volcanic landscapes, through dunes and more traditional gravel roads.
Toyota test driver Juho Hänninen finished second to Al-Attiyah last month and admitted his GR Yaris Rally2 had been given a significant work out.
“It was quite slippery in places,” said the Finn, “and I was not expecting it to be so rough. It was more like Safari!”
