Increasing confidence from the last two rallies sees the BP Ford Abu Dhabi Team maintain its impressive lead at Rally Poland. Finnish drivers Mikko Hirvonen and Jari-Matti Latvala have built a powerful lead across all the stages up to midday on Saturday, and are in pole position for points come Sunday. Following the surprise departure of Sebastian Loeb yesterday, the BP Ford Abu Dhabi Team have a winning position at the half way point, but no one is getting overconfident yet - there is still a long way to go on the treacherous gravel roads in Poland.
The Abu Dhabi backed team used its perfect positioning and the support of the thousands of fans to maintain its lead over the chasing pack. Both drivers pushed hard, but remained careful, across the fast eighth and ninth stages, with Latvala continuing to hold his second placing rather than challenge his teammate for first. No-one at Ford wants to risk jeopardising the maximum points haul that is within the BP Ford Abu Dhabi Team’s grasp. "The weekend has gone to plan so far for the BP Ford Abu Dhabi Team," said Ahmed Hussein, Deputy Director General of the Abu Dhabi Tourism Authority. "However, we know there is a long way to go and having seen what happened to Loeb yesterday we are certainly not overconfident yet. The continued success of the team is a great boost for Abu Dhabi and I know the whole Emirate is behind them."
The bad weather conditions earlier in the week haven’t proved a problem for the WRC cars, but elsewhere in the Fiesta Sporting Trophy international (FSTi) the Abu Dhabi Junior Drivers were experiencing difficulties in yesterday’s later stages. The rain had softened the track considerably causing some of the cars to become grounded and resulting in delays to the drivers behind them. However the Abu Dhabi Juniors Majed Al Shamsi and Bader Al Jabri seized the opportunity to give solid and focused performances and push themselves up the classifications, while other drivers were struggling. The two young Emirati aces have continued to control their cars on the difficult surfaces and have moved up impressively to second and third in the FSTi.
Al Shamsi was pleased with his position after stage eight, commenting "the first few stages were fast, the conditions were better than expected, but after that they became tough. The WRC cars that had been out on course ahead of us had made parts of the track very deep and it was causing cars to get stuck. Luckily I was able to stay out of trouble and I hope to use the experiences from yesterday to continue to push harder today".
Abu Dhabi Junior Driver Ahmed Al Mansoori comes back into the FSTi today within the ’Super Rally’ following his power steering failure in stage four, and will use the rally as an opportunity to gain experience on the varying surfaces and the fast course, to put into practice during Rally Finland next month.
The Abu Dhabi Rally Programme is an initiative of the Abu Dhabi Tourism Authority (ADTA) which is one of the title sponsors of the BP Ford Abu Dhabi World Rally Team, Official Destination partner of the World Rally Championship, and creator of the Abu Dhabi Junior Driver Development Programme.
