Andalusia Rally 2022: Inaugural crowd of W2RC champions in Spain

Sebastien Loeb might have won the Andalusia Rally Class T1 overall, but it wasn’t enough to overtake Nasser Al-Attiyah for the inauguration of the category World Rally Raid Championship. While he barely edged Al-Attiyah for the race victory by just six seconds, Al-Attiyah won the fourth and final stage of the rally on Sunday to put the icing on his maiden W2RC title.

Al-Attiyah fell behind Loeb after a challenge Step #3 but bounced back to win the fourth by twenty-two seconds over Loeb. While his total time of 8:40:41 was not enough to surpass Loeb’s 8:40:35 overall, Al-Attiyah’s twenty-two point advantage in the standings entering Andalusia was down just two at the end as he beat the Frenchman 169 to 149. Victory caps a solid year for Al-Attiyah and his co-driver Mathieu Baume who started by winning the Dakar Rally.

“The main objective here was to win the first-ever world championship,” Al-Attiyah said. “It’s been an amazing year of racing. Things have always been very tight between us and Seb.

Francisco Lopez Contardo was assured of the T3 title after Cristina GutierrezSaturday’s tough race, so even finishing behind her and off the Stage 4 podium didn’t shake her points advantage. Guillaume de Mevius won both the stage and his first international rally raid ahead of compatriot Red Bull Seth Quintero; as he finished fourth in driver points, the co-driver Francois Cazalet won their respective championship ahead of partner Quintero Denis Zenz.

“It’s been a very long year since the Dakar,” Lopez said. “We had to be at our best all year to stay on top. I have to say a big thank you to my whole team for making this result possible.

The T4 championship fight consisted of three drivers separated by as many points in total entering the final round. Marek Goczal took the lead entering the penultimate stage before being knocked out in a wreck, which left Rokas Baciuska to successfully fend off the dark horse austin jones. Apart from the title image, Paul Navarre took stage and rally victory to settle for fourth in points.

Sam Sunderland basically had the RallyGP title locked barring disaster and a masterclass by Ricky Brabecthird and twenty-four points behind (second Pablo Quintanilla did not race due to a shoulder injury he sustained in Morocco Rally). Unfortunately for Brabec, the Dakar winner proved too strong as he finished fifth overall ahead of Brabec’s eighth. Adrian van Beveren took his first overall victory as a Monster Energy Honda Rally Team Member.

“It’s great to bring the title home for the team, I’m super grateful for all their hard work and happy to be able to give them the championship,” commented Sunderland. “The season started perfectly with the victory of the Dakar and also that of the Abu Dhabi.”

Whereas Amine Echiguer finished Andalusia in third place on Rally3 and two hours behind the winner Jeremy Mirrorhis victory in Morocco – which Mirror did not participate in – helped freeze the class title. Alexandre Giroud won all three of his starts in the Quads to win this championship.

Kees Koolen (T5) and mason klein (Rally2) clinched their respective titles in the previous round in Morocco. While the T5 trucks did not race in Andalucia, Klein dominated Rally2 winning all but the final stage to cap off a dominant season.

Stage #5 winners

Overall Winners

W2RC Pilot Champions

W2RC Co-Driver Champions

W2RC Constructor Champions