Thursday 05 / February / 2026
LUSAIL (Qatar): The 2026 Qatar International Rally got underway from the ceremonial start podium at the service park adjacent to the Lusail Sports Arena on Thursday evening.
Twenty-three teams and competitors from 13 nations will tackle a dozen special stages over the weekend on graded gravel special stages to the north of Doha. Cars were flagged over the podium in reverse order by QMMF President Abdulrahman Al-Mannai and the QMMF’s Executive Director Amro Al-Hamad.
A new Qualifying Stage was held at Al-Khor on Thursday morning to determine the starting order amongst the leading six Rally2 crews. This is a new innovation for the FIA Middle East Rally Championship (MERC) being trialled by the Qatar Motor and Motorcycle Federation (QMMF) for the first time.
Nasser Saleh Al-Attiyah and Candido Carrera laid down the gauntlet in their Autotek Škoda Fabia RS with a run of 3min 11.1sec but Abdullah Al-Rawahi and Ata Al-Hmoud dropped 49.7 seconds to the defending champions. The Omani later admitted that his strategy was to start first on the road on Friday.
Abdulaziz and Nasser Al-Kuwari were second quickest, 9.6 seconds slower than the stage-winning defending champions.
Al-Attiyah said: “It was a good run and we are quite happy with the performance of the car. Everything was working very well. For Qatar Rally, it is better to start behind.”
Al-Kuwari added: “Good recce and good stages. I am looking forward to them. The qualifying stage was good. We lost one or two seconds in one corner with a small overshoot but it was a good feeling. I am happy although I think this may be my only rally this year. It’s a bad feeling for me because I only do the Baja Cup. I have to accept this and I will do my best. Abdullah’s (Al-Rawahi) strategy could be right or it could be wrong. That’s his strategy. I think he wanted to open the road. Normally, on this type of stage there is not too much cleaning. It’s fast. With every car passing, there are more rocks on the road. It could be good but there could be some loose places and no traction. He knows his plan and he is fighting for the championship.”
Mohammed Al-Marri (Citroën C3) and Nasser Khalifa Al-Atya (Ford Fiesta) were third and fourth but Hamza Bakhashab and Lorcan Moore were penalised in their Jameel Motorsport Toyota GR Yaris Rally2 and will now open the road on Friday.
Al-Rawahi and Al-Kuwari incurred five-second penalties for clipping a stage gate but Bakhashab earned a 45-second penalty for three similar offences.
Al-Rawahi said: “First of all, we don’t actually have any parts to push, so we just needed to be clean. We just need to avoid punctures and breaking anything. I think we did the right thing. We had good times in practice. The new stages are similar to the ones we have done before. It’s going to be a tough rally.”
The leading six cars will start the opening stage on Friday in reverse order to their finishing positions on the Qualifying Stage.
Before qualifying, the six crews were permitted to carry out two practice passes through the stage. Al-Attiyah topped the times on his second pass and stopped the clocks in 3min 11.11sec. Al-Kuwari was next up with a best time of 3min 17.10sec, ahead of Al-Rawahi (3min 17.25sec), Bakhashab (3min 18.96sec), Al-Marri (3min 25.74sec) and Al-Atya (3min 30.3sec).
The 17 remaining teams were then permitted to carry out their own pre-rally testing on the same 5.56km stage, which doubled up as the now mandatory Shakedown. Twelve took advantage of the opportunity.
Friday
Friday’s action features two loops of three gravel stages. The morning’s itinerary features runs through the brand new Lejthaya (16.54km) and Waab Al-Mashrab (16.11km) stages and Al-Waab (18.14km). The opening speed test gets underway at 08.15hrs and the rapid-fire morning continues with the other two specials going live from 08.43hrs and 09.20hrs.
The three will be repeated at 12.25hrs, 12.53hrs and 13.30hrs after a return to Lusail for a late morning regroup and service.
