Al-Attiyah set for split with team

Al-Attiyah feels his team has been unprofessional in its approach to the Auckland event, failing to bring the required spare parts for his Skoda Fabia S2000 - and attempting to switch his nomination from Rally New Zealand to Rallye Deutschland without consulting the Qatar driver.

"I start the rally without any spares," said Al-Attiyah. "Okay, we have some spare suspension arms and brakes, but we have no spare gearbox or differentials. If we stop, we stop and that's it.

"I think this will be my last event with the team. I feel sorry, but this is not the professional way. The team tell me they have no spare parts, but this is not my fault, it's not my job - they accept my programme and they must do it, I pay a lot of money."

Al-Attiyah, who finished second on this year's Dakar with the official Volkswagen team, said he had contacted Kris Nissen, VW's motorsport director, to seek advice on what he should do for the rest of this year's Super 2000 World Rally Championship.

"I sent an SMS to Kris Nissen," said Al-Attiyah, "now I have to wait to see what he says we can do. I drive for the Volkswagen Group, so hopefully there can be a solution with Skoda, but we need to find a solution quickly."

Al-Attiyah has suffered a troubled start to the year, finishing 18th on last month's Jordan Rally, but retiring from Rally Mexico after engine trouble on his first outing in the Fabia.

The Rene Georges Rally Sport Team was unavailable for comment when contacted by AUTOSPORT.