Confirmation has been issued by the FIA that the "M2" Qatar WRT entry for team patron Nasser Al-Attiyah will surprisingly not be eligible for Manufacturers Points at Portugal. Under a special waiver issued by the FIA, M-Sport were told that Qatar WRT could run either a one-car or a two-car registered team during the 2013 season, so long as the events concerned were specified at the start of the season.
In order to accommodate the limited availability of the team patron Al-Attiyah, M-Sport told the FIA that there would be five events in which only a single car would be registered - Portugal, Argentina, Finland, Australia and France, and on all the other eight events there will be a two-car registered entry.
Since then Al Attiyah has become available to compete in Portugal, but plans were already confirmed that Neuville would run as an eligible QWRT driver, and it was too late to vary the agreement with the FIA. It had been planned that Al-Attiyah and Neuville would be the points-scoring drivers in Sweden, but then Al-Attiyah withdrew for illness reasons and was replaced on the rally by Matthew Wilson. In the absence of an available certification of illness, however, Matthew was not allowed to replace Al Attiyah for points scoring purposes. The points scoring eligibility of Mads Østberg and Evgeniy Novikov in the official "M1" Qatar M-Sport WRT is unaffected.
Confirmation has been issued by the FIA that the "M2" Qatar WRT entry for team patron Nasser Al-Attiyah will surprisingly not be eligible for Manufacturers Points at Portugal. Under a special waiver issued by the FIA, M-Sport were told that Qatar WRT could run either a one-car or a two-car registered team during the 2013 season, so long as the events concerned were specified at the start of the season.
In order to accommodate the limited availability of the team patron Al-Attiyah, M-Sport told the FIA that there would be five events in which only a single car would be registered - Portugal, Argentina, Finland, Australia and France, and on all the other eight events there will be a two-car registered entry.
Since then Al Attiyah has become available to compete in Portugal, but plans were already confirmed that Neuville would run as an eligible QWRT driver, and it was too late to vary the agreement with the FIA. It had been planned that Al-Attiyah and Neuville would be the points-scoring drivers in Sweden, but then Al-Attiyah withdrew for illness reasons and was replaced on the rally by Matthew Wilson. In the absence of an available certification of illness, however, Matthew was not allowed to replace Al Attiyah for points scoring purposes. The points scoring eligibility of Mads Østberg and Evgeniy Novikov in the official "M1" Qatar M-Sport WRT is unaffected.