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Second place for Khalid Al Qassimi in Kuwait

Khalid Al Qassimi and Chris Patterson finished as runners-up in their in their DS 3 RRC at the Kuwait International Rally, the second round of the 2015 Middle East Rally Championship. They consolidated their second position in the overall standings.
In the two-wheel drive category, Mansoor Belhelei took the honours in a DS 3 R3.
In the early stages of day one, Khalid Al Qassimi was fighting for first place, just a few seconds off the leader. But the DS 3 RRC crew were forced to slow down on SS3 after getting caught up in the dust. After a series of bumps, the windscreen became covered in sand which prevented them from making out the road.

The following day, the Abu Dhabi driver made up some of the time lost with a stage win on SS9. During the final loop, Khalid Al Qassimi decided to consolidate his position. After a puncture on SS11, he recorded another fastest time on the next stage to secure second place overall.

Meanwhile, among the DS 3 R3s entered by Abu Dhabi Racing, Mohammed Al Sahlawi led the category at the end of the opening leg, but a transmission problem forced him to retire on SS8. Mansoor Belhelei took over as the new leader, going on to win the Junior and two-wheel drive categories, ahead of Mohammed Al Mutawaa.

"It was a tough rally, some very good competition," admitted Sheikh Khalid Al Qassimi. "I'm very happy to finish on the podium. We had some bad luck on the first day when dust stuck to the windscreen. With the resulting visibility problems, we lost around 40 seconds. I tried to catch up today, but we lost another 25 seconds due to a puncture. It is not the result we wanted, but we'll take second after all the issues."

The next round of the MERC will be held on 6-8 May, at the Shiraz International Rally in Iran.