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.