Khalid happy to keep progressing

Khalid Al Qassimi has told Wrc.com that his debut for the factory Ford team on Neste Oil Rally Finland back in 2007 is still the highlight of his World Rally Championship career but says he remains satisfied with his continued progress in the sport.

Al Qassimi, who helped to celebrate principal backer Abu Dhabi Tourism Authority’s four-year anniversary as a partner of the works Ford squad and a major supporter of the WRC in Finland last week, still looks back with fondness on his first run in a Ford Focus RS WRC in competitive conditions.

“There is no word to express and to tell you the feeling at the particular moment when I first jumped into a World Rally Car in Finland in 2007,” said Al Qassimi, who finished 16th on the event alongside co-driver Nicky Beech. “It was a proper factory set-up and I remember wanting to take it easy, to learn.

“It’s like brining a new kid to a kindergarten and looking at them trying to find a small corner with lots of kids around them. That’s how it was for me. It was difficult but part of the skills you need to be a rally driver is to live with that situation. Now I know almost all of the people around me so it is much easier.”

Asked about the moments he’d rather forget during the intervening years, Al Qassimi is less specific. “The bad moments are when you have those incidents but I like to look at the good moments when you feel you are progressing, developing and achieving something,” he said.

The Emirati has gone on to make 36 appearances at world level since Rally Finland in 2007 scoring 23 points and achieving a best result of sixth position on the Acropolis Rally in 2009 with new co-driver Michael Orr.

“As much as it looks like quite a few years since we started the programme, if you ask me from my humble point of view a driver always needs more mileage to perform at a high level,” said the 35-year-old Al Qassimi. “But I’m happy because there is progress and there is speed and you cannot ask for more than that. Don’t forget we come from a very lean area of having less events that can support us to develop.”

As well as driving a Fiesta RS WRC on selected world championship events, Al Qassimi is the ambassador for the Abu Dhabi Junior Team, which fields a brace of Subaru Impreza STI WRXs in the Production Car World Rally Championship for Bader Al Jabri and Majed Al Shamsi.

“There are a lot of things on my shoulder by being the face of the programme,” said Al Qassimi. “I’m trying to be the right ambassador. Hopefully I am the right person to try to deliver as a destination plus supporting youth and drivers.”