PORDENONE (ITALY): Qatar’s Adel Abdulla and French navigator Jean-Michel Polato held second position in the T2 category for series production cross-country vehicles after the opening two special stages of the 25th Italian Baja on Saturday morning.

Adel said: “We had a problem with the sensor on the turbo on the shakedown. It was giving the wrong signal and the car was running in safe mode. We entered the super special and I did not push from the start. After 5km from the start, the car went into the safe mode again and we lost around 1min 40sec to the leader. The mechanics tried to fix the problem yesterday.

“We did a good job in the first stage today. Yesterday we were third and then we moved up to second place with the fastest time. The race is really tough. The stage is repeated three times and it will be very rough with the two stages tomorrow. It will be hard on the cars.”

Adel Abdulla’s campaign to win back the FIA T2 Championship is running with valuable support from the Qatar Motor and Motorcycle Federation (QMMF), Ooredoo Qatar.