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Al-Attiyah to the Rescue!

The winner of the Dakar in 2010 has decided to come to the aid of Gilbert Escalé, who it now turns out will indeed be taking starter's orders for the Dakar with his twin brother Oriol. Like at FC Barcelona, Qatar has taken on a Catalan accent!

The story of the Escalé twins is already somewhat of a soap opera on the Dakar. The two Catalan bikers had planned to ride their dream rally together, but the late withdrawal of one of their main sponsors forced them to choose which one of them would ride the only bike still accessible for their budget. Chance smiled on Oriol, condemning Gilbert to content himself with a place in a press vehicle. Published on the dakar.com web site, the tale had soon done the rounds of the newspapers, in particular the Spanish ones, until it was noticed by Lucas Cruz, co-pilot to Nasser Al Attiyah, who was involved in testing in Germany: "I told him this quite remarkable story and he immediately asked me if I had their phone number. I made sure I found it and then called them. They told me they had money problems, so I said that Nasser was ready to help them. So there wasn't a problem anymore!"

At the other end of the line, Gilbert could hardly believe what he was hearing. The following day, he had just about got his head around the change in fortunes that has put him back in the saddle: "I'm over the moon. What's happened for me is a miracle. Fifteen days ago, I found out that I wouldn't be able to race, but now everything's ok. Nasser is a wonderful guy. All he asked in return was for me to wear the colours of Qatar on my coveralls and I'll be doing that with plenty of pride. What's more, my brother is so happy that I'll be with him so he's going to do it too". Having returned to Doha after carrying out the final fine-tuning on his Mini, Nasser is delighted to have put a smile back on the faces of the two 21-year olds: "First and foremost, I'm a Dakar driver and I know how bad they must have felt to see their plans fall apart. I had the opportunity to help them, so I didn't hesitate. In fact, I'll be keeping a close eye on them. I know they are both talented and it may turn out that I've given my backing to a future winner of the Dakar". As the Olympic shooting bronze medal he won in the skeet event shows, he has a good eye. Gilbert has found himself an ideal sponsor.