Cullen triumphs in season ending race

Manama : Ireland’s Ryan Cullen completed a brilliant season for his eighth win from 12 races in Race 2 of Round 6 as this season’s 2016/17Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge Middle East came to a conclusion yesterday as a support race to the 2017 Formula One Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix at the Bahrain International Circuit in Sakhir.

This was Cullen’s maiden drivers title in this series which was in its eighth season and is based on the highly successful Porsche formula for one-make series racing  and the challenge gives every driver an equal chance to compete, racing in identically constructed Porsche GT3 Cup cars.

Cullen’s time was 21 minutes 24.663 seconds over the 10 lap - 53.874 kms course to also win the Gold category, followed in second place by Luxembourg’s Dylan Pereira (21:24.826) a mere 0.163 seconds behind, while Dutchman Charlie Frijns (21:26.584, +1.901) driving for Frijns Structural Steel ME claimed the final podium position in third.

In the Silver category, Oman’s Al Faisal Al Zubair (21:27.019) was a class ahead of his nearest rivals and won the category to finish fourth overall following his Race 1 overall category win on Saturday, with Luxembourg’s Carlos Rivas (21:42.380, +17.717) behind Cullen and completing the podium was Bahrain’s Shaikh Isa bin Abdulla Al Khalifa (21:43.407, +18.744), of Team Bahrain ho claimed the final podium place and finished ninth out of the 15 drivers.

Meanwhile, Team Bahrain’s Shaikh Isa bin Salman Al Khalifa (21:38.295, +13.632):clinched first place in the Bronze category and was fifth overall, ahead of second placed Philipp Sager (21:41.831 of Austria, with Sweden’s Christoffer Bergstrom (21:43.306, +18.643) for Team Sweden third on the podium.

Shaikh Hamad Al Khalifa also competed but did not finish after completing eight laps and classified as finishing 13th.

The fastest began with Bahrain hosting the opening, round, Dubai the second and third rounds, Abu Dhabi the fourth and Bahrain the fifth and the sixth final round this weekend.