Al-Attiyah wins last three stages to win in Cyprus

The Qatari driver won the final three stages of the race to shut out a charge from champion-elect Andreas Mikkelsen, who ran into trouble on stage 11 with not one but two punctures - his third and fourth of the race.

With no chance of making up the deficit, Mikkelsen then let co-driver Ola Floene take over behind the wheel for the 13th and final stage of the race, which was also the final stage of the season in which the duo won their second consecutive IRC title.

Al-Attiyah ended up winning by three minutes 35.3 seconds from Mikkelsen, with Japan's Toshihro Arai third some 10:07.1 back from the winner.

Qatari Al-Attiyah – a London 2010 Olympics shooting bronze medallist – started day two with a lead of more than 90 seconds over Mikkelsen, who had been delayed by a brace of punctures on Saturday.

Although the young Norwegian, in a ŠKODA UK Motorsport Fabia Super 2000, fought back to a deficit of 49 seconds with a succession of stage wins, a double tyre deflation, caused by big hit on the spectacular Prodromi run on Sunday afternoon, ended his outside hopes of victory and enabled Al-Attiyah to cruise to his second IRC career win and the third for M-Sport's Ford Fiesta Regional Rally Car in this season's series.

"It's been a really fantastic weekend," said Al-Attiyah.

"Our plan was to finish without any punctures and this is what we did. Everything has been working well, the tyres, the car, me, the co-driver, the team, everybody has done a good job.

"Andreas was not so lucky and had some problems but this is part of the game – you need a lot of experience on this rally."

Mikkelsen was delighted with another supern season in IRC.

"We've had two remarkable years with ŠKODA UK who have given me the opportunity to get my international career on track and I am so thankful to them," said Mikkelsen, whose charging performance earned him the Colin McRae IRC Flat Out Trophy.

"The IRC has been perfect for me and the team and now I hope I have proved everybody wrong who doubted me as being the right driver for this car by winning my second title."