Al-Rajhi, Abu Aisheh and Al-Khulaifi grab opening qualifying stage wins at Saudi Baja 2022 in Hail

HAIL: Saudi Arabia’s Yazeed Al-Rajhi, Jordan’s Abdullah Abu Aisheh and Saudi Arabia’s Abdulmajeed Al-Khulaifi topped the car, motorcycle and quad categories after a shortened 3.91-kilometer qualifying stage at the start of the three-day Saudi Baja 2022 in Hail on Thursday.

Al-Rajhi and his German co-driver Dirk von Zitzewitz stopped the clock in 3 minutes, 9.9 seconds to win the day’s stage by 8.8 seconds in their Overdrive Racing Toyota Hilux.

Brazilian driver Cristiano de Sousa Batista and his Portuguese co-driver Fausto Mota came home in second and first in T4, and Al-Rajhi’s Czech title rival Miroslav Zapletal and his Slovakian co-driver Marek Sykora were third. Fourth-placed Fernando Alvarez and Xavier Panseri topped the T3 standings.

Young Jordanian rider Abdullah Abu Aishah topped the times on two wheels with a run of 3:33.0 on his KTM Factory Rally 450. Great Britain’s Alex McInnes and Makis Rees-Stavros were second and third.

Local Yamaha Raptor rider Abdulmajeed Al-Khulaifi beat Abdulaziz Ahli by nine seconds to win the quad stage. He was also faster than the leading motorcyclist in the FIM category.

After the ceremonial start at the Al-Maghawah National Park, competitors tackled a qualifying stage that was reduced from 18 km to just 3.91 km in length. Nineteen FIA cars, 31 motorcycles, four quads and 25 vehicles running in the Saudi National Baja were permitted to start.

Majed Al-Thunayyan and Yahya Ali Abdu were disqualified from the FIA event on the grounds that their cars failed stringent technical specifications. Maha Al-Hameli and Annie Seel also dropped out of the FIA event and moved their Team Black Horse Can-Am into the National Baja.

The seventh round of both the FIA World Cup for