Mohammed Ben Sulayem

Mohammed bin Sulayem (born November 12, 1961) is a UAE champion rally driver who lives in Dubai. He has won more FIA regional championships, and more international rallies, than any other racer in history. His premier event has been the FIA Middle-East Rally Championship. Since first winning in 1986, he has gone on to win the event 14 times, never having been defeated. He took a sabbatical from racing after his 2002 season. He is also sometimes referred to as Mohammed ben Sulayem.

Education

Mohammed is an alumnus of the American University, located in Washington D.C., where he majored in political science.

Post-rallying

Sulayem is President of the Automobile and Touring Club of the UAE (ATCUAE) and as such has been appointed by the FIA and FIM as the official representative to oversee all motorsports events in the UAE. He is also Chairman of the Organising Committee for the UAE Desert Challenge, a race that he launched in 1991. The event has since become the final round of the FIA Cross-Country Rally World Cup.

As the owner of Ben Sulayem Performance, he and his team have been noted for creating super-high performance modifications to a variety of sports and luxury cars. In 2005, he received press in motorsports' circles for having a Mercedes SLK 55 AMG modified to accept a Modified SLR engine, providing the car with over 740 hp and 1200 Nm (885 ft·lb) of torque. The modified SLK has a higher top speed (350 km/h estimated) than the production SLR due to differences in weight and was noted for a video depicting it out-performing an Enzo Ferrari.

On April 9, 2009 while demonstrating a Renault R28 F1 car – in a drag race against 2008 GP2 Asia Series champion Romain Grosjean, who was driving a Ford GT – at an exhibition at the Dubai Autodrome, Sulayem lost control of the vehicle under acceleration and crashed into the pit wall, causing extensive damage to the car. He was uninjured in the incident.

Major rally wins and championships

• Middle East Rally Championship (14): 1986–91, 1994, 1996–2002
• UAE International Rally (5): 1996–99, 2001
• Bahrain International Rally (3): 2000–02
• Qatar International Rally (9): 1988, 1990–91, 1996–98, 2000–02
• Jordan International Rally (12): 1984, 1987–88, 1990, 1994, 1996–2002
• Rally du Liban (4): 1987, 1997–99
• Syrian International Rally (3): 2000–02
• Dubai International Rally (15): 1985–88, 1991–95, 1997–2002
• Oman International Rally (6): 1986–87, 1990–91, 1994, 1998
• Kuwait International Rally (4): 1985, 1988–89, 1996
• Saudi International Rally (1): 2000

External links

• Mohammad Ben Sulayem
• Automobile and Touring Club for UAE
• UAE Desert Challenge
• Ben Sulayem Performance
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• Jalopnik More on the SLR-Powered Mercedes SLK: Out of the Mouths of Mechanics
• His driver profile