Oman’s Al Zubair clinches GT3 race one

Manama : Teenager Al Faisal Al Zubair (21 minutes, 22.541) of Oman in the silver category celebrated his maiden victory with a near flawless performance from pole in the penultimate race of the Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge Middle East 2016/17 season yesterday, which is a support race to the 2017 Formula One Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix at the Bahrain International Circuit in Sakhir.

The race was over 10 laps and a total of 53.874kms with 15 drivers in the fray. 

Charlie Frijns (+0.678 seconds) of the Netherlands driving for Frijns Structural Steel ME in the gold category came in second, while the series leader and this season’s champion Ryan Cullen (+3.861) also in the gold category came in third to complete the podium.

Fourth to sixth places went to Dylan Pereira (LUX, +4.407, gold), Bandar Alesayi (KSA, +9.965, silver) and Magnus Ohman (SWE, +14.999, bronze, Team Sweden).

Rounding out the top eight was Christophe Bergstrom (SWE, +17.826, bronze, Team Sweden) in seventh and Bandar Mardini (UAE, 19.614, silver) in eighth.

Team Bahrain interests lay with young debutants Isa Abdulla Al Khalifa and teammate Isa Salman Al Khalifa, alongside countryman Hamad Al Khalifa who all raced well on their home circuit. At one stage all three Bahraini drivers were directly behind each other attacking and defending in an effort to grasp valuable points.

Isa Salman Al Khalifa (+20.812, bronze) and a GCC Rookie finished highest among the local drivers and followed in tenth by Isa Abdulla Al Khalifa (+21.080, silver), while Hamad Al Khalifa (+35.170, bronze) pushed hard for a top ten finish but unfortunately left the track briefly when trying to overtake and settled for twelfth position.

After the race Isa Salman Al Khalifa said: “I didn’t have a great start today and racing in the hot conditions was tough. Throughout the race I managed to climb and few position but couldn’t extend the lead enough to keep them. I finished third in the bronze category and second in the Porsche GCC Rookie championship. I am hoping for a stronger performance tomorrow to be able to keep my dreams alive of winning my category at the last possible opportunity.”

Isa Abdulla Al Khalifa added: “The race was really good today, great competition and remained fair and clean. I managed to retain my starting position throughout which was an achievement for me. We are going to look at a few things on the car and hopefully in the last race of the season we can push a bit more and finish higher in the field.”

Meanwhile, Cullen’s third place confirmed he secured the overall Drivers Championship for the first time in his career as he has seven wins from 11 races and has never finished a race this season lower than four, according to the regulations all drivers are allowed to drop their worst result.

Behind Cullen the fight continues for the final overall podium in the driver standings and cross the GCC Rookie Category as well as the Silver and Bronze categories with many battles still to be won.

The championship concludes today with the twelfth and final race of the season starting at 3.30pm, following Bahrain hosting the opening round, Dubai the second and third rounds, Abu Dhabi the fourth and again Bahrain with the fifth and the sixth and final round this weekend.