Jordan Rally stage guides - Saturday

Saturday's final day of the Jordan Rally takes competitors north of the Dead Sea base.

After restarting at 0730hrs, they face two identical loops of four stages, split by a 30-minute midday service, before returning to the Dead Sea for the final service at 1440hrs.

The finish ceremony on the shores of the Dead Sea takes place at 1530hrs after another 105.50km of competition.

Here are our wrc.com stage notes for Saturday's stages. Under the summaries you'll find our list of essential website links to help you follow the rally via our live results service.

SS14/SS18: Yakrut. 14.16km
Run in the reverse direction to 2008, when it was called Mai'n, this stage provides some of the rally’s most spectacular views and is popular with spectators thanks to its location close to the main highway. The stage runs through small Bedouin settlements at 13km which provide a great local flavour. Most of Yakrut is fast, wide and open with a hard road surface. The second half is particularly fast; the road flows well but there are a few crests and blind bends along the way. There's a tarmac section at the 9.5km point, but the surface is generally hard-packed gravel, covered with a fine dust. This combination means the road will clean a lot.

SS15/SS19: Bahath. 12.53km
Almost all of this section was included in the Erak Alamir stage from 2008. However this time it's run in the opposite direction. It’s a tricky test because the character of the route is so varied that it's impossible to settle into a comfortable driving rhythm. It starts with a really steep downhill section on a thick coating of gravel - with so much loose material on the road it's hard to judge braking points here. After a bridge crossing the road climbs up a hill and becomes very twisty and technical. The twisty nature remains for most of the route, but the surface is constantly changing. At five kilometres it switches to a hard-packed base with a dusting of fine gravel, and later on there are sections of broken asphalt and some evil-looking pot holes to contend with.

SS16/SS20: Shuna. 15.23km
About half of this stage will have been run earlier in the rally so it will be interesting to see if the surface starts to get torn up. Shuna starts tight and twisty then heads down into a gorge. At the bottom, at 1.2km, the road runs over a steeply angled concrete culvert. Then there's a short steep uphill section with some tight back-to-back hairpins and hair-raising drop offs. From 1.8km to 3.3km the road gets faster as it runs along a ridge line then goes downhill - steeply in places - with lots of hairpins and s-bends to the 6.8km point. For the next 3km the road gets faster. It's still twisty but not as tight and it flows a bit better. Between 9.2km and 13.6km the road is up and down like a rollercoaster. There are lots of blind crests and massive drops on the left of the road. It runs along a ridgeline for the last 2km. Generally the route flows fairly well but is tight and technical in places.

SS17/21: Baptism Site - 10.83km
The start is close to the location where Jesus Christ was baptised in the Jordan River. Again, the stage runs through the lowest point on earth and finishes a stone’s throw from the Dead Sea. The stage was run earlier in the event - although in the opposite direction - as Suwayma. It remains to be seen how much the road surface will deteriorate - if at all. The opening 4km are very fast on a combination of gravel and broken asphalt, then there's a complex of tight corners from 3.8km to 4.2km. There's a very fast short asphalt strip a couple of kilometres later. From there to the 11km mark it's very fast. There's not much gravel and the hard packed surface is almost like asphalt, the corners flow well, with minimal crests. There's a watersplash 3km before the finish, then it's a short dash to the line up a fast and twisty road.

Source: WRC