13th Ha’il Nissan International Rally gets underway on Monday afternoon 14.01.2018: • 46 teams set for four-day battle across Saudi Arabia’s An Nafud desert The 13th Ha’il Nissan International Rally fires into life with a 3.87km super special stage at Mashar,

•    46 teams set for four-day battle across Saudi Arabia’s An Nafud desert
 




The 13th Ha’il Nissan International Rally fires into life with a 3.87km super special stage at Mashar, 5.5km from the official start in Ha’il, from 16.35hrs on Monday afternoon.
 


An impressive field of 46 cars will tackle the four-day event being organised by the Saudi Arabian Motor Federation (SAMF).
 


Nissans dominate the entry list and 25 entrants will drive cars built by the Japanese manufacturer. The top seeds are Faris Khalaf Al-Mashna and Saud Nasser Al-Tamimi in their Nissan Patrol. Al-Mashna won the event last year and is out to join Nasser Saleh Al-Attiyah and Yazeed Al-Rajhi as a multiple winner of the event in the car category. The event entered the international motor sporting calendar for the first time in 2007 after running as a club event the previous year.
 


Al-Mashna faces competition in the T1 category from the likes of Ibrahim Al-Muhanna, Mutair Abdullah Al-Shammeri, Ahmed Al-Shuhail, Al-Mashna Al-Shammeri and Essa Al-Dossari.
 


The battle for supremacy in the T2 category is also likely to be tense. Yasir Saeidan brings his FIA World Cup experience to his home event in a diesel-engined Toyota Land Cruiser with UAE co-driver Arif Yousef Mohammed and faces the likes of Ahmed Al-Shegawi and his Russian navigator Alexei Kuzmich in their Toyota and Muneef Al-Salmani in his Nissan Saudi Arabia-backed Patrol.
 


Other T2 runners include Khalid Al-Hamzani, Saeed Al-Mouri, Khalid Al-Otaibi and Yousef Al-Suwaidi.
 


The T3 section is also well-supported on this occasion and 11 teams will take part in this increasingly popular category for the Can-Am, Polaris and Yamaha brands. Bader Al-Tuwaijri, Zakaria Al-Tuwaijri and Fahad Nasser Al-Naeem lead the Polaris challenge and Majed Ibrahim Al-Tuwaijri wheels out his Yamaha. The likes of Khaleel Abdulrahman Al-Tuwaijri, Sami Al-Ghafari and Saleh Al-Saif represent the Can-Am brand.
 


The Ha’il Nissan International Rally is being staged under the patronage of His Royal Highness Prince Saud Bin Abdul Mohsen Bin Abdul Aziz, Governor of Ha’il, President of the Supreme Commission for Ha’il Development and the Head of the Supreme Commission of the Ha’il Rally.
 





- Neil Perkins -  also photos