Already 2014 has proved to be a good year for Sam Sunderland after he won the second stage of the Dakar Rally last month in the bikes category.
The Dubai-based Briton hopes to build on that strong performance by winning the Abu Dhabi Desert Challenge in April.
The event, the opening round of the 2014 FIM Cross Country Rallies World Championship and Round 3 of the FIA World Cup that runs from April 3-10, will see Sunderland compete in the bike category for the Red Bull KTM Factory Rally Team.
“It’s definitely an event that I consider I have a possibility to win,” Sunderland said of his chances of challenging for victory.
“But, for that to happen, everything needs to fall into place. There are so many factors involved in winning a rally like the Desert Challenge, where you’re riding 10 hours a day for five days.”
The move to join the Red Bull team came recently and Sunderland has signed a three-and-a-half-year deal with the organisation that will have him partnered with Marc Coma, the Spaniard who has won in Abu Dhabi seven times and is the defending bike champion. Sunderland put in a strong performance in last year’s competition and was on target for victory before a penalty for a technical infringement demoted him to third, leaving the way clear for Coma, who has won the Dakar Rally four times, to take the spoils.
“The team has a huge amount of experience and I’m dreaming, really,” he said. “I couldn’t ask for anything better.”
Sunderland will link up with Coma and the rest of the KTM team for two weeks of testing in Spain next month before returning to the UAE for another week of preparations for the Desert Challenge.
The rider has a fan in Mohammed ben Sulayem, the president of the Automobile and Touring Club of the UAE (ATCUAE), who said he was impressed with how Sunderland had coped with the setback of missing out on victory last year through something that was controllable.
“Sam showed a lot of maturity in the way he accepted that disappointment and quickly put it behind him, and he has a very bright future ahead of him,” Ben Sulayem said. “He now has a wonderful opportunity to learn from the best, and it’s very satisfying to see a young competitor developing his talent in the UAE and earning recognition in this way. We hope he will inspire many other young riders here.”
Cars, bikes and lorries will compete in three categories in the Desert Challenge, in which most of the action is to take place in the UAE’s Western Region of Al Garbia.
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