All eyes on FIA Drivers

Manama : All eyes will be focused on the tightly contested race between the Hybrids of Porsche and Toyota Gazoo Racing for the FIA World Endurance Drivers’ Championship.

Porsche has won six of the eight rounds so far and have already clinched the FIA World Endurance Manufacturers’ Championship. Hybrid line-up of Romain Dumas, Neel Jani and Marc Lieb continue to lead on points despite having not finished on the podium since a win at Le Mans.

Toyota’s Hybrid team of Stephane Sarrazin, Mike Conway and Kamui Kobayashi are 17 points behind in second and a further 13.5 points behind in third are Audi Sport Team Joest’s comprising Loic Duval, Lucas di Grassi and Oliver Jarvis.

The Karting world and junior championship feature almost 150 drivers including Bahrain’s Hussain Hassan and Talal Beshara from 35 countries and are competing in the CIK-FIA World Championship and CIK-FIA World Junior Championship.

In the supporting races the Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge Middle East and the MRF Challenge will be holding the first rounds of their 2016/2017 seasons with Bahrain’s trio of Shaikh Isa bin Abdulla, Shaikh Hamad bin Isa bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa and Shaikh Isa bin Salman Al Khalifa part of a 19-driver line-up.

The festival is a massive logistical undertaking, with over 268 drivers from all over the world competing in their various categories and another 1,046 team members playing their parts.

Air freight weighing more than 500 tonnes, similar to that of three 747 aircrafts, has been shipped to the Kingdom. Entertainment tonight will be a concert by Moroccan singer-songwriter Hatim Ammor, American pop star Dev tomorrow evening and Algerian icon Khaled on Saturday evening and all those with tickets can enjoy these events as well as plenty of other off-track Action-Ha entertainment for all the family.