(MENAFN- Muscat Daily) Saif al Harthy and his co-driver Salim al Abri won the first round of the 2015 Oman Rally Championship (ORC) in Muscat on Saturday.
The rally which saw nine cars participate in the opening round is being organised by the Oman Automobile Association (OAA) in co-operation with ROP the Ministry of Sport Affairs and the Ministry of Tourism.
Driving a Mitsubishi Evo 10 Harthy and Abri overcame sandstorm and some challenging terrain to finish the total length of 304.5km with a time of 58m38s.
The special-stage distance was 86.1km while the road section covered 218.4km.
The special stage consisted of stages at Rusayl spanning 18.30km and at Al Misfah covering 10.4km.
Faisal al Rashdi and his co-driver Waleed al Rashdi driving a Subaru Impreza finished second with a time of 1h00m55s while Khalid al Minji and Saif al Aisri finished third clocking 1h01m09s.
Harthy said after the win 'We faced tough challenges from the other competitors and we are very happy to be on the podium. We will fight for the championship title.'
Minji said 'The competition was very tough. We had to fight very hard for finishing third in this round.'
Khalid Soomar former ORC champion and a top attraction at this year's edition as well was forced to retire midway into Saturday's action following a malfunction in his Mitsubishi Evo 7.
Zakariya al Awfi driving a Mitsubishi Evo 9 also couldn't finish his race due to a technical problem with his car.
Brig (retd) Salim al Maskiry the OAA chairman conducted the ceremonial flag-off at Muscat City Centre on Friday to kick-start the opening round.
Khalid al Zubair chairman of the Oman Olympic Committee was the chief guest at Saturday's prize distribution ceremony. He was accompanied by Maskiry and Husam al Mandhari general manager of Muscat City Centre.
Results:
1 Saif al Harthy/Salim al Abri (58m38s) 2 Faisal al Rashdi/Waleed al Rashdi (1h00m55s) 3 Khalid al Minji/Saif al Aisri (1h06m10s).
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