LUSAIL, Qatar: Saudi female driver Dania Akeel and her French navigator Stephane Duple delivered a stunning performance to lead the car category after a dramatic day’s action at the Qatar International Baja on Friday.

The Overdrive Racing Toyota Hilux crew won the opening stage and then ceded time to their main rivals through the second one but did enough to take a lead of 92.9 seconds into the night halt. As a result, they lead all the crews in the FIA Middle East Baja Cup.

Akeel said: “That’s it! This is our first stage win overall. I had a great time. Stephane was amazing. The cap was changing. The stage was fast, twisty, rocky and a really nice sector by the sea. That was really steep for the first time. That was really good training. We are in a perfect position for tomorrow. It’s going to be a really fun ride.”

Denis Krotov and Konstantin Zhiltsov hold second and lead the FIA World Baja Cup crews in their new petrol-engine X-Raid Mini JCW Rally 3.0i, while the Portuguese pairing of Joao Ferreira and Filipe Palmeiro are third overall and lead the SSV section in a Can-Am Maverick XRS Turbo RR.

Krotov’s X-Raid team manager Tobias Quandt said: “It was a nice day for us for testing. Our engine is still in development, but we are on a pretty good level. It’s a nice fight and a nice race. Denis had one puncture on the first stage, but he did a good job, and we are super happy to have him back in the team.”

Ferreira said: “The stages were very fast. It was very difficult navigation. I have never seen anything like this. It is very difficult to see the tracks and the junctions. We finish without any problems and Filipe did an amazing job from the navigation side. We are third and leading SSV. We are very happy.”

Joao Dias came home in fourth place in the second of the Santag Racing Can-Ams in the SSV section, and Saudi Arabia’s Mooaz Hariri moved ahead of Czech driver Miroslav Zapletal to snatch fifth in his Can-Am. Khalid Al-Jafla leads the Challenger section in his eighth-placed Taurus T3 Max.

Kuwait’s Abdullah Al-Shatti (Kawasaki) and Saudi Arabia’s Hani Al-Noumesi topped the motorcycle and quad times after the second stage of the FIM event where several riders missed vital route waypoints with the tricky navigation across the deceptive desert terrain.

FIA entrants tackled a pair of 123.91 km and 122.50 km special stages on the northwestern side of Qatar, while the motorcycle and quad riders competed over just one special of 256.42 km.

Nasser Saleh Al-Attiyah started the opening stage 10th on the road behind his brother Khalifa. Krotov was first out with the burden on co-driver Zhiltsov to master the tricky navigation from the front of the field.

Both Mohammed Al-Atteya and FIA Middle East Baja Cup leader Ahmed Al-Kuwari stopped for several costly minutes early in the first stage. Al-Atteya returned to the stage start and later retired, as Abdullah Al-Rabban was also delayed and Ibrahim Al-Muhanna (engine), Camelia Liparoti and Stefano Marrini (three punctures) fell by the wayside.

Krotov stopped to change a puncture near the end of the opening stage north of the Tamim Airbase and to the east of the Khawzan Road and the delay undid all his hard work. He carded a target time of 1 hour 22 minutes and 06.1 seconds, but the stoppage was costly and Akeel beat him by 5 minutes 36.6 seconds.

Akeel, Krotov and Ferreira duly claimed the quickest times to take the leading three places in the Baja. Challenger front-runner Al-Attiyah slotted into fourth ahead of his brother Khalifa. Akeel’s stage win meant a female driver led the Baja for the first time in history.

Stage 2 covered the tracks that the bikers had taken on the first half of their stage in the morning, but the northwesterly wind had intensified. Krotov began to pass the tailenders from the motorcycle race on the run north and he eventually stopped the clocks in 1 hour 9 minutes and 24.7 seconds to win the stage and reduce Akeel’s overnight lead to 1 minute and 32.9 seconds.

The run north along the coast proved costly for the host nation’s hopes of victory. Both Al-Attiyah (loss of engine oil) and his brother Khalifa (broken engine) were sidelined, Ahmad Al-Mohannadi damaged the rear right-hand corner of his Taurus in an accident, but Abdulaziz Al-Kuwari overcame hefty delays with electrical woes and fuel pressure issues to finish over 90 minutes behind his rivals. Khalifa Saleh Al-Attiyah will not restart on Saturday.