Al-Attiyah won’t give up on SWRC title dream

Nasser Al-Attityah has told Wrc.com that he refuses to give up on his dream of winning the Super 2000 World Rally Championship this season despite failing to score on two of the three rounds he has tackled so far.

Al-Attiyah is 28 points behind joint championship leaders Martin Prokop and Ott Tanak prior to the start of the Acropolis Rally.

The Qatari, who will drive a Barwa World Rally Team Ford Fiesta S2000 in Greece, said: “We try for every race. We started good in Mexico but got excluded. In Jordan we had a big lead then got engine problems. In Sardinia we start good but then get a fire in the car so what can we do?”

“The title will not be easy but we will not give up,” he continued. “If we win this race then after we will think what will be possible. We try our best for this rally. In Greece we have a lot of experience in really very hard conditions. It’s better for my style to drive. Okay, everybody [in the SWRC] is here and everybody wants to win the race so it will not be easy. We have to be more clever.”

While Al-Attiyah is an Acropolis regular, Tanak has never competed on the demanding gravel event before. But after winning the previous SWRC round in Italy, the young Estonian says he his not daunted by the prospect.

“It was my first time also in Sardinia; there were some very rough places there as well. It’s good to be smart here, but you need to keep some speed up to make a good result. It will be a big challenge. For sure we can push as hard [as] we did in Sardinia. We need to find some good rhythm here. Let’s see.”