CC Bruno Saby joins AlgoDyne Green Racing Team for Dakar 2008

FRENCHMAN SABY JOINS X-RAID FOR UAE
DESERT CHALLENGE AND DAKAR RALLIES

Guehennec set to partner former Dakar winner in X-Raid team;
Al-Attiyah and Thörner to form new X-Raid team alliance

TREBUR (Germany): Frenchman Bruno Saby will replace the late Colin McRae in the AlgoDyne Green Power Racing Team for the 2007 UAE Desert Challenge and the Dakar Rally in January 2008.

Saby, from Grenoble, won the Dakar Rally in 1993 and also took victory in the 1996 UAE Desert Challenge with French co-driver Dominique Serieys. More recently, he was a member of the Volkswaqen Motorsport team and won the 2005 Patagonia-Atacama Rally, before taking a sabbatical from the world of Cross-Country motorsport to recover from back surgery.

The 58-year-old former WRC driver will be partnered on the forthcoming events by Frenchman Alain Guehennec, the usual co-driver for Qatar’s Nasser Saleh Al-Attiyah, with whom Guehennec finished third overall in the recent Rally of Morocco. Al-Attiyah will, therefore, become the first top level Arab driver to be co-driven by a female, when he teams up with Sweden’s Tina Thörner, who had been contracted to partner McRae.

Both crews will field a pair of X-Raid built BMW X3CCs. Saby and Guehennec head straight to Morocco today (Thursday, October 11th) to carry out a three-day test and development programme around Erfoud with the X-Raid team.

"Bruno has joined our team in very sad and unfortunate circumstances," said X-Raid Team Manager Sven Quandt. "But I cannot think of anyone who I would prefer to have in the team in this situation. He is an experienced and very successful driver and is a former winner of both the Dakar and the UAE Desert Challenge. He is a great addition to the team."

Saby entered the first of his 39 WRC rallies in 1973 and took his maiden victory in Corsica during the halcyon days of the FISA Group B category in 1986. He also won the 1988 Monte Carlo Rally, before switching to the exciting discipline of Cross-Country rallying after the 1991 Lombard RAC Rally. He has been a factory driver with Peugeot, Lancia, Mitsubishi and Volkswagen during his long and illustrious career.

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