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Hail Rally 2020 gets underway in opener of Baja events

Toyota Gazoo Racing’s Nasser Saleh Al-Attiyah, who starts on Thursday as one of the favorites, in action in Spain last October. (Supplied)
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Updated 10 December 2020
Arab News
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Hail Rally 2020 gets underway in opener of Baja events

  • The three-day event will mark the fourth round of the 2020 FIA World Cup for Cross-Country Bajas
Updated 10 December 2020
Arab News

HAIL: The first of two back-to-back Baja events running under the Hail Rally Toyota 2020 banner gets underway at Al-Maghwat, on the outskirts of Hail city, on Thursday evening. 

The three-day event will mark the fourth round of the 2020 FIA World Cup for Cross-Country Bajas and finishes on Saturday afternoon.

The Saudi Automobile and Motorcycle Federation has confirmed that, subject to technical checks and last-minute changes, 54 FIA cars, 27 motorcycles, 25 quads and one truck will take part in the main event, with 35 additional vehicles competing in a National Rally.
Toyota Gazoo Racing’s Nasser Saleh Al-Attiyah won the Hail International Rally in 2009 with a BMW X3CC and in 2011 with a Volkswagen Race Touareg. He starts as one of the pre-event favorites to achieve success, in addition to using the two events as a shakedown test for January’s Saudi Dakar Rally.

The three-time Dakar winner said: “It is good to be able to use the Bajas for a test, but it will not be easy. Most of the drivers will use the same car for Dakar but, at the same time, the teams will be asking the drivers not to push to save the cars from damage. It’s nice to be here in Hail for two Bajas. After the races, I will do two more days of testing here and then two days of driver teaching. Then, the whole team will be in Jeddah for Dec. 25, and we will spend New Year’s there before Dakar.”

While Al-Attiyah’s Toyota teammate Bernhard Ten Brinke concentrates on his quest for the FIA Bajas drivers’ title, Jakub Przygonski drives a third of six official Toyota entries and will be hoping to claim the win.

Przygonski said: “I am really happy to come back to the desert. The last time was back in March. Timo (Gottschalk) and I will be able to test the new car and a lot of things. We will try to be as fast as possible. It has been a hard year, but I was able to win the Polish Cross-Country Championship and be the vice-champion in rallycross. It means I did quite a lot during this hard year.”

Triple Dakar champion Carlos Sainz and record-breaking 13-time event winner Stephane Peterhansel will debut their latest specification Mini John Cooper Works Buggies at the two Bajas in Hail, before using the new STC-backed cars at the Dakar in January.

X-raid team engineers in Germany have managed to make substantial improvements to the Buggy, including weight reduction and revisions to suspension geometry and setup. The cars have been tested recently in the UAE, and shakedowns will continue at the Bajas in Hail.

The Russian duo of Baja title contender Vladimir Vasilyev and Viktor Khoroshavtsev will use four-wheel-drive derivatives of the MINI John Cooper Works Rally, while Denis Krotov drives a Mini All4 Racing — the model that recently celebrated its 10th anniversary and was the first of the Mini cross-country machines to be devised by X-raid back in December 2010.

 X-raid also announced on Wednesday that it will field two Yamaha YXR 1000R prototypes in the T4 category at the second of the Bajas in Hail. 

Sweden’s Mattias Ekstrom will tackle the event with fellow Swede Emil Bergkvist in the first car, while San Marino-based Camelia Liparoti will team up with Annett Fischer in the second car.

Ekstrom has enjoyed success in circuit racing, rallying and rallycross and will go to compete at the Dakar Rally for the first time.

One of the teams hoping to challenge Mini and Toyota over the course of the two Bajas will be the Serradori Racing Team, which is running three South African Century Racing-built CR6 Buggies entered for the French duo of Mathieu Serradori and Alexandre Leroy and Saudi driver Yasir Seaidan.

 The powerful Chevrolet 7.0-liter V8-powered two-wheel-drive Buggy was a revelation at the last Dakar. 

Serradori managed to claim a stage win on his way to eighth overall and victory in the T1.3 class for two-wheel-drive petrol vehicles. He tackled the Dakar on a motorcycle on three occasions before switching to four-wheel competition to achieve other notable results, including victory at the 2018 Africa Eco Race, third in the Silk Way Rally and numerous category successes.

Seaidan pushed fellow Saudi driver Yazeed Al-Rajhi hard for the inaugural Saudi Toyota Desert Championship title in 2019 and has joined the SRT lineup after tackling numerous events with the X-raid team.

Baja Hail 1 will run over two selective sections, starting with the 251.81-kilometer Radifah section on Friday. The first FIA entrant will begin the stage close to the historic hub of Jubbah, 90 kilometers from Hail, at 8:58 a.m. The town lies on the old caravan road between Najd and the eastern Mediterranean.

The Baja route winds its way through the Al-Nafud desert to the northwest of Hail city and finishes close to Highway 65, the Kingdom’s main link road between Riyadh and the Jordanian border to the north. 

There will be a passage control after 165.77 kilometers.
 
The second section of 275.29 kilometers starts close to Jubbah at 9:00 a.m. on Saturday morning and heads further west of Hail before looping through the desert to finish close to the village of Q’na.

 Rally officials have arranged two passage controls after 147.29 kilometers and 261.46 kilometers.
 
Hail Rally Toyota 2020 takes place under the supervision of the Hail Regional Development Authority in cooperation with the General Authority for Tourism and National Heritage and the General Authority for Sport.

Topics: Hail Rally Hail Bajas

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Australia depth shows up England’s Ashes ‘failures’

Updated 12 December 2025
AFP
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Australia depth shows up England’s Ashes ‘failures’

Updated 12 December 2025
AFP

SYDNEY: A well-drilled Australia are on the cusp of retaining the Ashes after just six days of cricket — not bad for a team lambasted by England great Stuart Broad before the series began as its weakest since 2010.
The hosts take a 2-0 lead into the third Test at Adelaide on December 17 needing only a draw to keep the famous urn and pile more humiliation on Ben Stokes’s tourists.
Australia have put themselves on the brink despite missing injured pace spearheads Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood, with the performances of stand-ins Michael Neser and Brendan Doggett a reflection of their depth.
“The great and the healthiest thing for Australian cricket right now is that they’ve got almost a second XI or an Australia ‘A’ side that could come in and play some outstanding cricket too,” said former Australia Test quick Brett Lee.
“The guys who have had their opportunity, the Doggetts and the Nesers, have stood up. They’ve taken their opportunity and taken it with both hands, which is brilliant.”
The strength of the country’s talent pool was driven home by Australia ‘A’ crushing England’s second-tier side by an innings and 127 runs at Allan Border Field while Stokes’s men were being thrashed down the road in the second Test at the Gabba.
Young prospects Fergus O’Neill, Cooper Connolly and Campbell Kellaway stood out, while discarded Test batsman Nathan McSweeney fired a double-century reminder to selectors.
It is a far cry from the pre-Ashes war-of-words where England were hyped as having their best chance in a generation to win a series in Australia, with seamer Broad’s comments coming back to haunt him.
“It’s probably the worst Australian team since 2010 when England last won and it’s the best English team since 2010,” said Broad, who retired in 2023 and is now working as a pundit.
“It’s actually not an opinion, it’s fact.”
At the time, he pointed to questions over the make-up of Australia’s batting line-up and a perceived lack of bowling depth.
Both have been blown out of the water.

On the go

Australia went into the first Test in Perth dogged by uncertainty, with the uncapped Jake Weatherald as Usman Khawaja’s sixth opening partner since David Warner retired nearly two years ago.
In a quirk of fate, Khawaja was unable to bat in the first innings because of back spasms with Marnus Labuschagne replacing him.
But it was when he pulled out again in the second innings and Travis Head stepped up that the tide turned on England with his stunning 69-ball match-winning century.
“Ever since Travis Head stuck his hand up to open when Khawaja got hurt in Perth, Australia have looked like a different team,” said Australian legend Glenn McGrath.
Labuschagne said Head and Weatherald’s confidence trickled down to the lower order in Brisbane, where himself, Steve Smith and Alex Carey all blasted quick-fire half centuries.
It leaves selectors with a dilemma for the third Test: recall now-fit 85-Test veteran Khawaja or persist with Weatherald and Head, whose home ground is Adelaide.
Smith, who stood in for Cummins as skipper in the first two Tests, attributed Australia’s success so far to being able to adapt “in real time.”
“We play ‘live’. We adapt on the go, instead of getting back in the sheds and going, ‘We should have done this’,” he said.
“Sometimes it’s just playing the long game. I think we’ve just adapted so well the last couple of years, and played in real time, I suppose.”
For former Australia captain Greg Chappell, Australia’s success has been as much about England’s failures.
While their aggressive “Bazball” approach might be suited to flat English pitches and small grounds, it has been brutally exposed by the bigger boundaries and demanding conditions in Australia.
“The failure that has ensued across the first two Tests is a whole-of-system one, a catastrophic breakdown of both the game plan and its execution,” he wrote in a column.
“While the players have been the immediate culprits, the off-field leaders —  Brendon McCullum and Ben Stokes — are equally responsible for not recognizing the different challenges presented by Test cricket in Australia.”
 

Topics: The Ashes

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