00:00Hello and welcome to the Dead Sea, the lowest place on earth. Below me it's 435 meters below
00:11sea level but this is one of the high points of the Middle East Championship calendar. It's
00:14the Jordan Rally, round four of the FIA Middle East Rally Championship. We've had three events
00:19so far this year in Oman, Qatar and Saudi Arabia and this weekend Jordan Motorsport has 12 special
00:24stages. Two days, 21 entries in the FIA Championship and another nine drivers entering into the
00:30National Championship over two days. Led away by the 19 time FIA Middle East Rally Champion Nasser Aletia
00:36who this weekend is bidding for a 17th win in Jordan and an unprecedented 90th win in the Middle East.
00:43Jordan is like second home you know for me and I start the first race this was in Jordan you know in
00:5089 and still we are coming and to race here in Jordan and today what we see and yesterday
00:59during the Racky it was an amazing job you know from the Jordanian Motorsport you know it was really
01:06amazing and yeah I will try to do my best you know to win this race again. It's round number four of
01:13the Championship it's been a pretty comfortable start for you, three wins. How are you going into this
01:19weekend? Are you on your guard or are you quite comfortable that you'll be getting win number
01:23four? I will try to win this number four you know this season you know we start really good with the
01:29new Fabia Skoda. We test yesterday it was a really amazing test and we spend a few things you know to
01:39change in the setup but we have a good setup from last year you know because it's a new car for us but
01:46okay we try to do our best and to win this rally because it's my really favorite and we need to be
01:53clever because okay it's look like a little bit hot maybe some people will struggling about the weather
02:01but okay we are well prepared and we try to do our best. Alatir will face a stiff challenge to his
02:09dominance from a quality field led by reigning Middle East champion and fellow Qatari Abdulaziz Al-Khawari
02:16who is looking for his first Jordan win this weekend. I would like to thank who did the stages
02:23because so to be honest they are amazing very nice even the new stages or new parts of the stages or
02:28even the old stage like Panorama they're really class and very nice. Karama, Tal Hilali, all of them
02:35to be honest fantastic stages we just worry you know about the grip in the beginning maybe the
02:40first loop but otherwise the stages are amazing the competition will be very high and very good
02:45because I think we have seven or eight R5s for sure everybody will be looking to win this rally it's not
02:50easy for sure with Nasser with Adal Arwahi with Rakan with local drivers with Lebanese a lot of R5s will be a
02:59good competition but we are looking forward we'll push we'll try to win for sure and we'll do our best.
03:04Have you felt any extra pressure being the regional champion this season how has it been?
03:09No no there's no pressure at all you know to be honest when I play different sports like
03:13paddle or other sports everybody says like how we don't feel any pressure you look cool always
03:18after driving rallies like in this sport to be honest you don't feel pressure on anything
03:23and you get used to different stages different opponents or let's say competitors so there's no
03:31pressure at all I always try to enjoy and do my best maybe I'm not doing my best until now in
03:37this season maybe it's because of the new car I need some time I think I'm getting used to
03:42especially last day in Saudi was much faster than Thursday and the previous rallies so hopefully
03:50with more more kilometers and more mileage I'll get used more to the Citroen and I'll try to push
03:56as fast as you can this rally. Saudi Arabia's Rakan al-Rashid will be hoping to use his WRC experience
04:05to make an impact in Jordan while 2023 Jordan rally winner Abdullah al-Rawahi from Oman
04:12believes he too can push for a podium. Well this year it's been very tough for us
04:18we didn't really get the results I actually expecting but you know we've been trying really
04:25hard to push and to close the gap between me and Nasser in terms of pace because every year we go in
04:35and we try to learn more and more and more yeah the first three rallies didn't go as expected especially
04:44in Oman the first day we had to retire but we were fast in Qatar we keep on getting faster and faster
04:52in Saudi Arabia we had a lot of punctures now we're in Jordan obviously this is where I started and
05:01I think I know the stage is quite well but it's different from the other years but I love the train
05:06I love the stages they're tough we need to be very careful as well because it's very slippery
05:15and a lot of crusts so the notes should be like really precise obviously we're coming here to push
05:23try to take the win but obviously it's not going to be an easy job you have to be really focused and
05:31I think I'm prepared more than last year last year we were quite we were leading before we
05:38like we had to retire but in the end it was a positive thing to take from last year
05:45unfortunately we didn't finish the rally hopefully this year we can continue the job
05:53with two days of exhilarating action ahead of us the question remains as to who can stop Alatia
05:59the undisputed Middle East rally king from taking one step closer towards his century of wins
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