Dakar | The curious story of Al-Attiyah's “FA57 DKR” license plate

In view of the Dakar 2024, and after the announcement of Nasser Al-Attiyah's signing with Prodrive which anticipated his move to Dacia next year, the Qatari driver published a video in which he revealed his new car and it could be seen a fun detail on his license plate. The Qatari sported a series of numbers and letters that appeared to spell out “FAST DAKAR” and Motorsport.com took an interest.

At the Al-Hofud bivouac, our correspondent went to talk to the right-hand man of the five-time winner of the Touareg Trophy, Jordi Vidal, who explained this curious story in detail. The Hunter with which Nasser competes was one of those already present in the British structure, and he himself chose it.

“Nasser's car is not new, I think it is the one used by 'Orli' Terranova, who left the team”, commented the Catalan into our microphone. “And the license plates, if you notice, are like the English ones, which end in DKR (an acronym that makes it seem like it reads Dakar). And Nasser's car had another one, I don't know which one now, but he had asked if he could have put Dakar or something like that.”

However, the curiosity to know whose idea it was, whether the expressive Qatari or a team member, continued, so Motorsport.com insisted on the topic: “FA57 DKR is not his idea, but someone's of his team, who showed us two or three alternatives. Nasser then chose this one.”

“I think that, or at least the one who sent it to me via WhatsApp, was Alan McGuinness, who is the team's logistics manager, then I don't know if it was someone else, but the one who sent it to me was Alan “, assured Jordi Vidal about who the brilliant mind is who had the idea to give the two-time winner of the World Rally-Raid Championship that plaque.

Furthermore, when asked if it is something the Qatari driver likes or if he jokes about it, he replied: “Not too much. But he likes it, who wouldn't like to have a more or less personalized license plate? And why until now Toyota had always had a South African number plate, where you can't personalize it, whereas in England you can, so they made it that way.”