Qatari driver Nasser Saleh Al-Attiyah is looking forward to winning the Rally Mexico "Sonora"which constitutes the third round of the new World Rally Championship (RAID), which was introduced by the International Automobile Federation last year.
Al-Attiyah, world champion in long-distance desert rallies (cross-country) and five-time champion of the Dakar Rally, accompanied by his French navigator Mathieu Baumel, finished his strong preparations for the Sonora Rally, which will start with an opening stage in the city of Hermosillo tomorrow, Sunday.
The Qatari champion, the holder of the title of the first edition of the World Championship, faces strong competition this season from Frenchman Sebastien Loeb, who won the World Rally Championship nine times previously, who seeks to record his seventh victory in Mexico and maintain the lead in the World Cup for Desert Rally Championships this year.
Accompanied by his navigator Fabien Lorquin, Sebastien Loeb is 16 points ahead of his arch-rival Nasser Al-Attiyah, who is in second place, and who seeks to take advantage of the Mexico Rally to pounce on the lead. Loeb had won nine of the 19 stages so far in the first two rounds of the World Cup for Desert Rally Championship, which are the Dakar Rally and the Abu Dhabi Desert Rally. Also competing in the Mexican Rally are Prodrive Hunter cars, also from the Brazilian X-Rally Team, driven by Christian Baumgart and his co-driver Alberto Andreotti, and Marcus Baumgart and his navigator Clipper Sencia.
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