Qatar Drift Championship: Al-Atiya claims fourth round honours

Qatar’s Saud al-Atiya claimed top honours in the fourth and penultimate round of the Qatar Drift Championship as engine noises roared at Qatar Racing Club (QRC) at the weekend.The event is being sponsored by QRC Chairman HE Sheikh Khalid bin Hamad al-Thani.After the drivers’ free test on Wednesday, the qualifying took place on Thursday in two sessions.The first day, as usual, was dedicated to qualifying trials, held over two sessions, and in the end, Kuwait’s Salem al-Sarraf managed to take the lead, leaving second place to the overall leader Ahmed al-Amri of Oman. Following them were Riyadh al-Mabsali and Mohamed Khourshid in third and fourth places, respectively.As for the qualifying trials in the local category, racer Abdullah Jawad Abdullah managed to take the first place, narrowing the gap with the championship leader Ali al-Jabsheh, who came in second, while the third place went to al-Atiya and the fourth to racer Aladdin Zareef. Overall, the trials resulted in the qualification of the top sixteen drivers for the knockout rounds, which began the next day.The results of the first round of knockouts saw the qualification of Salem al-Sarraf, al-Atiya, Mohamed Khourshid, and Mubarak al-Dousari from the first half of the bracket, while al-Amri, Mesier Abu Shiba, Khalid al-Shafei, and Ali Jabsheh qualified from the other half.The second round began with a heavyweight surprise as al-Atiya defeated al-Sarraf, the leader in qualifying trials, who needed to progress in this round as he competed for the championship’s overall lead but settled for this result.Similarly, Khourshid managed to defeat Qatari racer al-Dousari in the second face-off of this round, reaching the semi-finals for the first time in this championship, while on the other side of the matchups, there were no surprises as al-Amri defeated Abu Shiba and Ali Jabsheh secured his spot in the semi-finals by defeating his Qatari teammate al-Shafei, who faced issues preventing him from participating.The first semi-final match brought together al-Atiya and Khourshid, with al-Atiya winning to reach the final for the first time in the championship to face al-Amri, who had to settle for second place after a mechanical issue prevented him from completing the match.QRC Director Sheikh Jabor bin Khalid al-Thani crowned the top three winners on the podium. Additionally, the winners of the top three positions in the local category were also honoured in front of large number of spectators.The fifth and final round will take place on April 4 and 5.