Deja vu:Polish bike star Dabrowski retainstitle in Qatar

Konrad Dabrowski showed once again he loves riding in Qatar. Dabrowski retained his motorcycle title in Qatar with a polished performance that saw him win every stage on his KTM. It was the KTM Duust rider’s second successive win in Qatar. The Pole won the last stage by 6min 49sec to record a winning margin over Great Britain’s Robert Wallace of 31min 04.8sec. He also claimed the honours of finishing as the first FIM Junior. A number of riders got lost but Dabrowski who exhibited calmness under pressure.
Dabrowski said: “Qatar is very lucky for us. A second win here in a row. I like to come here because it is a great experience and I can improve my navigation and my riding. I was sick today on the stage after spending a night in the air conditioning. It was so difficult just to ride the bike on the second part of the stage. I am very tired but happy to win this race. I was super tired when I finished but it’s a great feeling to win.”

He added: “I like coming to Qatar because I have a lot of experience and I can work on my navigation and my riding there. I won the Prologue on Thursday and was able to choose the ninth starting position for SS2. It was a good position to catch the leaders and gain as much time as possible, which I managed to do before refuelling. I understood then that the result would be there. In the second part of the special, I opened the track and it was a very nice day. With Martin Chalmers dropped out of contention on the final morning, the battle for the final place on the podium swung in favour of the Dutch female racer Mirjam Pol. The KTM rider climbed from eighth to third to finish as the top Women. She edged out Andrew Houlihan for the last podium place by just 66.4 seconds, although the Australian had the consolation of winning the Veterans’ class and finishing a fine fourth.

A delighted Pol said: “When you start eighth overall and you finish third it is a big surprise. I had all the route waypoints and when I arrived I only saw two lines and that’s when I realised I had achieved a very good result. I had a good pace in the race but it is mainly thanks to my good navigation that I am in third position. For two days, I marked all the waypoints. In any case, it’s a nice surprise!”
Emirati Mohammed Al-Ramani climbed to fifth at the expense of sixth-place Canadian Jonathan Finn. Mohammed Al-Balooshi was the championship leader after the opening round in Saudi Arabia and the Emirati reached the finish in eighth.
Several riders were handed time back overnight by FIM officials for delays on Friday helping at the scene of other competitors’ accidents. Oran O’Kelly received a credit of 53 minutes and Alex McInnes and Simon Marcic were also handed time back. McInnes went on to finish 10th overall after setting the second quickest time behind Dabrowski on the final stage. Marcic came home in third place on the day and finished 14th.
Emirati Sultan Al-Balooshi did not restart after his problems on Friday. Arnoud Dom was the unofficial winner of the quad category after Haitham Al-Tuwaijri and Abdulaziz Al-Ahli failed to finish. Mansoor Al-Suwaidi finished second.
The next round of the FIM Bajas World Cup is the Baja TT Dehesa Extremadura that takes place in Spain from April 14-16.