3 victories at 3 events of the FIA World CupAfter the race in Italy where they finished in 3rd place of the overall classification, Jean-Louis Schlesser and Konstantin Zhiltsov hoisted themselves into the 2nd spot on the podium at the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge and continued their charge at the Sealine Rally in Qatar, where they won the overall.

So what happened in Qatar? "There were about ten serious rivals for the podium spots and 36 competitors. As the last race the level of competition was very high. We managed to beat the BMW, Nasser's buggy, Gordon's buggy as well, the Toyota, the Mitsubishi etc..."

"This was an even harder challenge for us, having to raise our game to overcome the desert without problems and also to beat all of these excellent teams! We were well supported by BFGoodrich, not suffering a single puncture despite the extremely rocky land. We were able to win 3 Specials out of 4 and did this whilst opening the track. It was a very physical race as the Special Stages covered over 400 km in scorching conditions. ."

What about the route ? It was necessary to maintain maximum concentration because the 400 km were made up of several rectangles of 40 km x 70 km in which changes of direction were numerous, no tracks and it would have been easy to lose the race.

And physically?

"Finaly I'm satisfied with my performance as my broken fibula that I suffered at the Italian Baja caused me very little pain and I managed to pace myself over these very difficult days of competition."

At the end of the Sealine Rally Team Sonangol-Schlesser is learder in FIA Cross Country World Cup Overall and 2WD cat.

watch the videos at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JD5e2AnflPA&list=UUKiWLHeYvVx2TMV-Likiznw