Nasser Al-Attiyah is clear and strong when he is referred to FIA. The Qatari driver lost stage 5, the one before the rest day, due to the loss of a spare tire on the way, something that cost him a penalty that deducted 10 key minutes from the fight for victory. For this reason, the Qatari, when he spoke to the Spanish media present in the bivouac of Al Duwadimiis very critical of the decisions made by the International Federation, which also refers to the obligation to renounce Carlos Sainz and Sébastien Loeb or Laia Sanz due to slight displacement in the safety arch.
“I don’t understand it. The tire goes missing with the support and then the spectator finds the tire with the support and you get 10 minutes… I don’t accept it. But I’m trying to solve this whole problem because it’s not a sport, you know, we have to be fair. If I do something wrong and the tires are thrown, that’s fine, I get a 10 minute penalty. But we didn’t realize that the wheel had fallen off. We have to be fair, but we have a good letter for the president of the FIA (Ben Sulayem), to avoid all this,” he argued before going on to criticize the rigidity of the FIA in the face of the 3 millimeters of displacement achieved by an arch Sainz’s car bar, the same problem that Loeb had.
In the case of Sainz or Loeb, both Ford and Dacia, car manufacturers, have ensured that they can solve this setback safely. But the FIA refused and forced Loeb and Carlos to leave. Nasser also did not understand this decision.
“Genocide? It’s not genocide, The problem is that the rule is not clear. I want to compete with all the people, as well as Carlos Sainz, Sébastien, Laia… Why is Carlos not there? There is no reason. We can fix it, the team can fix it. Why did you say: ‘okay, done’? We’re not in F1, it’s cross-country. If you were to examine the cars carefully today, how many would you find guilty of?”announced the five-time Dakar champion, who is 30 minutes behind leader Henk Lategan in the overall Dakar standings with 6 days remaining.
Nasser found himself with many options to win the dunes
In that sense, Nasser assured that he would continue the attack and believed that Al-Rajhi, second overall, was not making a good plan:
“Hank is fast, he’s good, but Henk has a problem in the dunes. Also Mattias… Yazid (Al-Rajhi) is good in the dunes.but he is not fast, but if you see the Abu Dhabi rally he always loses time. Sands are sands and we can see. We will try to take advantage of that opportunity,” he commented.
In reference to Al-Rajhibelieves that he made a mistake by deliberately losing time in the attack on stage 7, because it could have been too difficult for him by opening the track to a difficult stage 8.
“Al-Rajhi did wrong, because tomorrow he will arrest us and then the next day he will open the way. If he wants to stay, stop, waste time, this is not a good time to waste time. Because every minute is good”he finished.
Source: La Verdad
I’m Rose Herman and I work as an author for Today Times Live. My expertise lies in writing about sports, a passion of mine that has been with me since childhood. As part of my job, I provide comprehensive coverage on everything from football to tennis to golf.
