Middle East Rally Championship
| Category |
Group N Super 2000 |
|---|---|
| Country | Middle East |
| Inaugural season | 1984 |
| Drivers' champion |
 Nasser Al-Attiyah
|
 Current season
|
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The Middle East Rally Championship (MERC) is a motor rally championship run under the auspicies of the FIA. First held in 1984 the championship encompasses a series of rallies held across Western Asia. The championship has featured long-running events like Rally of Lebanon, Rally Oman and the Troodos Rally in Cyprus as well as World Rally Championship event Jordan Rally. Many of the rallies in the region pre-date national independence, mostly from the United Kingdom thus the championship could be seen as a legacy of British (and French in the case of Lebanon) colonialism.
The championship has been dominated by remarkably few competitors. Mohammed bin Sulayem is a 14-time champion and reigning champion Nasser Al-Attiyah has won 12 times. Between them they have won over 60% of events in thirty-year history of the championship.
The current season includes events in Qatar, Kuwait, Iran, Lebanon, Cyprus, Jordan, Oman and the United Arab Emirates. The championship has also visited Bahrain, Syria and Saudi Arabia.
The 2012 events and winners:
The 2011 events and winners:
The 2010 events and winners:
197 Rallies (after Qatar 2017), 37 different winner, following are the winners stats:
23 drivers have won one round of the MERC;
Charalambous Thimotheou (CY), Amjad Farrah (HKJ), Andreas Peratikos (CY), Chris Thomas (CY), Samir Ghanem (RL), Abdullah Al-Qassimi (UAE), Abbas Al-Motaiwi (QA), Nasser Khalifa Al-Attiyah (QA), Hamed Bin Eid Al-Thani (QA), Maurice 'Bagheera' Sehnaoui (RL), Tony Georgiou (RL), Alex Fiorio (I), Piero Liatti (I), Russell Brookes (GB), Alain Oreille (F), Nizar Shanfari (OM), Nicos Thomas (CY), Rashed El-Ketbi (UAE), Khalid Al Suwaidi (QA), Nicolas Amiouni (RL), Tamer Ghandour (RL), Rodolphe Asmar (RL), Rashid El-Naimi (QA).
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