Sunderland unstoppable: the Brit triumphs in the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge

The 2022 Rally Raid world championship season has been all about Sam Sunderland so far. The Brit, who is a factory Gas Gas rider this year, is looking to be the title favourite considering that his impressive Dakar win in Saudi Arabia in January has now been followed up with victory in the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge.

And so it’s two out of two for Sam, who reached the highest step of the rostrum at the end of the five-day Arabian marathon. The final special was the real highlight, a stage that Sam began with a 23-second lead in the general standings. As well as winning the stage, he was also able to extend his leadership to around three minutes.

Finishing behind Sunderland were American Ricky Brabec and Chilean Pablo Quintanilla, both on a Honda. As for the championship standings, the Englishman leads the way with 63 points, followed by Quintanilla in second with 46 and Walkner third with 35. The next event (the third of five) will be the Andalucia Rally, set to begin on 6 June.

Sunderland: “It feels great to get another win and extend my lead in the championship“

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The 32-year old was understandably very pleased with this result, but also exhausted by the challenge: “It feels so cool to get the win! Abu Dhabi is always a tough race with the strategy and that was even more a factor this year as everyone was right on the pace. If you started a stage further back you didn’t seem to catch up so much time even though you were pushing like hell, so it was definitely a challenge this year. It was a tough race physically as well, partly because of the pace, but because of the heat too, as well as it being so close to Dakar”.

“It feels great to get another win and extend my lead in the championship. It also feels good to be able to reward the team like this because they have all worked so hard all week, and it’s results like this that makes it all worth it”, continues Sunderland, who’s already looking ahead to the next event. “The plan now is to keep the ball rolling and carry this momentum into the third round.”

Translated by Heather Watson

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