Ammon News - DEAD SEA - The Jordan Rally, the 3rd round of the 2010 FIA World Rally Championship (WRC), kicks off today with an exceptional ceremonial starting in the historic Roman city of Jerash.

This marks the 2nd time Jordan hosts a round of the prestigious WRC, an event to be held under the patronage of HRH Prince Feisal, chairman of Jordan Motorsport, that will also incorporate the 3rd round of the FIA Middle East Rally Championship (MERC) for the first time.

Sixty-three teams from 26 nations will grace the provisional starting list for the most important off-road motor sport event ever to be staged in the Middle East. Thirty of those are registered for the two-day MERC round and thirty-three will tackle all three days and 21 timed special stages of gravel competition on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Five of those are also registered for points in the regional series.

The rally will again be the battleground for the most experienced driver in the world headed by six-time world champion Sébastien Loeb and co-driver Daniel Elena in their Citroen Total WRT C4 WRC, with 43 points, followed by Mikko Hirvonen in BP Ford Abu Dhabi WRT Focus Rs WRC09, with 37 points, and Jari-Matti Latvala in his Ford Focus RS WRC09, with 25 points.

This year's event follows the success of the 2008 WRC round which saw Hirvonen taking the first spot when Loeb had a bizarre crash on a road section after a head-on collision with Zimbabwe’s Conrad Rautenbach which dropped him to 10th place.

The 2010 stages have been modified and others replaced altogether in an effort to introduce more variety to the route, which starts in the forests north of Amman at altitudes of more than 1,000 metres, then concentrates in and around the Jordan Valley at around 400 metres below sea level.

The rally will run on gravel surface with the total stage distance of 339.48km and the longest stage is Jordan River (SS10/SS13) with 41.45km.

Loeb at a press conference on Wednesday vowed to win the Jordan Rally WRC, an event which he has hailed as “world class”.

"I am aiming for my 56th world rally victory and second in succession after we won Round 2 in Mexico, so the Jordan Rally is very important and crucial," he said.

"The earth on the Rally Jordan stages is very hard. It’s covered by a layer of little pebbles whose thickness can vary depending on what the organisers have done," he added.

"We know that there have been violent storms that have damaged the roads. They’ve been repaired but we’ll have to see if this factor will have any influence on the outcome. In any case, second time round through the stages, we’ll have a grip level very like asphalt,” he stated.

Jordan was hit by rare weather conditions which affected the roads but extensive work made it possible to fix the roads according to FIA standards.

Citroen driver Dani Sordo, who finished second in 2008, is hoping to have more focus after driver errors cost him podium results in Sweden and Mexico.

“Our results in Sweden and Mexico were not in keeping with our potential. What’s very positive is that we’ll be seventh on the road here. On Friday, we’ll have the advantage of a route that’s been well swept by the front-runners. A podium finish would be a good result for us,” Sordo said.

To prepare for the Jordan Rally, Citroen Racing carried out a test in the south of Spain, which gave the team the opportunity to run through the range of set-ups available for this type of surface.

WRC title hopeful Mikko Hirvonen is confident his team will return to full strength in the Jordan Rally after a disappointing showing on the most recent round in Mexico.

"We've analysed the reasons why we weren't as competitive as we had hoped on the last round in Mexico and tried a few options during our test in Sardinia this week. I'm confident we'll be fully competitive in Jordan," Hirvonen said.

"The surface is hard and it feels like driving on asphalt; there will be loose gravel on the surface for the first pass through the stages, so the car will need a slightly soft set-up. But when the stages are repeated and the roads are clean the set-up will be harder, almost like we use on asphalt. There are no ditches there and in some bends it's possible to make big cuts, so we can't make the car too low. It's a compromise set-up between gravel and asphalt," he added.

“Even after the repairs, the weather has actually damaged some of the stage surfaces and that has meant that we have had to change some of our notes,” admitted Hirvonen, who will be chasing a 13th WRC victory over the weekend.

"The rally is fast and high speed sections are punctuated by small crests. But suddenly the rhythm can change and you come over a crest to find a series of hairpin bends. There are no trees or bushes in the desert to use as sight lines so the notes must be pin-point accurate," he stated.

While the whole world will be watching Loeb seeking his 56th win, all eyes will focus on the third round of the MERC especially Qatar's Nasser Al Attiyah who is leading the MERC standings with 10 points along with UAE's Sheikh Khalid Al Qassimi and Qatar's Sheikh Hamad Bin Eid Al Thani.

Attiyah said in the MERC press conference on Wednesday that he is ready to gain the needed points.

"I will be driving a Skoda Fabia S2000 and I hope that I will able to enter the MERC in full force the second day," he said.

The six-time regional champion who is also registered for the Super 2000 World Rally Championship (SWRC) clinched victory in Qatar in January with a Ford Fiesta S2000, but was forced to miss the Kuwait round of the series because of a date clash with Rally Mexico.

So far Attiyah has won 35 rounds of the regional series - a feat only surpassed by Mohammad Ben Sulayem, who won 60 rounds.

Sheikh Khalid will continue the test and development of the new Ford Fiesta S2000 by running as top seed in the MERC category. Sheikh Khalid scored maximum points by taking his seventh MERC victory in Kuwait earlier this month. He won the Jordan Rally in 2007 and is sure to be chasing a podium finish on Saturday afternoon now that the Abu Dhabi Tourism Authority has backed a decision for Sheikh Khalid to push for a first regional title since 2004.

"Jordan Rally is an excellent event, although tough as the route is filled with bends and small rocks that will make it really difficult to control the car that's why you need to be extra careful," he said.

Qatar’s Misfer Al Marri finished second in last year’s regional championship and is seeded at two in an Autotek Subaru. The Doha-based driver has never won a round of the series, but has eight points after two rounds and is merely two points off the three-way tie for the lead held by Attiyah, Sheikh Khalid and Sheikh Hamad.

Sheikh Hamad was regional champion in 1993 and scored his first podium finish since the mid-1990s with third overall in Qatar.

UAE’s Rashid Al Ketbi is the only driver in the Middle East never to have won a round of the championship. He is in the fourth position in the series with eight points and is more than capable of pushing his Skoda Fabia S2000 to a top finish over the demanding stages in the Dead Sea area.

Jordanian drivers will also battle the heated competition with Amjad Farrah, Mazen Tantash and Ammar Abu Namous taking part in the WRC round while nine strong teams tackling the MERC headed by four-time national champion Faris Bustami in addition to Faris Hijazi, Ahmad Mihyar, Ibrahim Diab, Abir Al Battikhi, Issa Abu Jamous, Rami Hijazi, Hani Al Baset and Ahd Eid.

Palestinian drivers have a strong presence through Rami Jaber and co-driver Noor Daoud.

“We did well in Qatar Rally but unfortunately we could not participate in Kuwait Rally as the authorities did not issue visa for us and now we are going to do our best to gain some points in Jordan," Jaber said.

Khaled Qadura, chairman of the board of the Palestinian Motor Sport and Motorcycle Federation, expressed his optimism and satisfaction that Palestinians will be competing here.

"Our participation is made possible due to the support of private companies such as National Arabian that will support us this season; we hope to do well in this rally which is very tough," he said.

(By Roufan Nahhas/Jordan TImes)



** Sebastien Loeb during a test run on Wednesday for the Jordan Rally WRC (Photo courtesy of the Jordan Rally)