Mikel Azcona, Harry King triumph at Bahrain at Bahrain International Circuit
TDT | Manama
The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com
Mikel Azcona and Harry King won the opening races in their respective championships last night, held at Bahrain International Circuit in support of the Bapco 8 Hours of Bahrain, the final round of the FIA World Endurance Championship.
Azcona triumphed in the opening race of the WTCR-Race of Bahrain, part of the WTCR-FIA World Touring Car Cup, to become the series’ first-ever race winner in the Kingdom and the region.
Meanwhile, King was dominant in his victory in the season-opening race of the Porsche Sprint Challenge Middle East.
Both series will be having their second races of the weekend today. In the WTCR’s Race One, Azcona stormed to the win from pole in his Hyundai Elantra N TCR car.
Finishing behind him as runner-up after 15 laps was his BRC Hyundai N Squadra Corse teammate Norbert Michelisz from Hungary, classified 1.955 seconds back.
Completing the podium was Nathanael Berthon from France, who finished 3.443s from Azcona driving his Audi RS3 LMS TCR for Comtoyou DHL Team Audi Sport.
A total of 15 competitors took part in the race.
The WTCR field returns to the BIC track today for a second go-around, scheduled for a 10am start.
In last night’s Porsche sprint, King cruised to an impressive triumph in which he was over a half-a-minute ahead of the rest of the field.
Bahrain’s Shaikh Salman bin Rashid Al Khalifa also had reason to celebrate, taking the win in the ProAm class as he marked his return to competitive racing after more than eight years away.
King, from Great Britain, went virtually unchallenged in his pole-to-flag triumph as he built a massive lead of 32.784 seconds as he took the cheqeured flag at the end of the 12-lap sprint.
Ghislain Cordeel from Belgium finished as the overall runner-up, while Ariel Levi of Israel took third, 33.210s from King.
Shaikh Salman nearly made it onto the overall podium, but he lost third place on the final lap and had to settle for fourth, 34.411s from the winner.
But his win in the ProAm class was still an impressive achievement, while also being first amongst GCC drivers.
Mark J Thomas from Canada won the Am category.
The Porsche Sprint Challenge field returns for race two today morning, starting at 11.15am with King once again on pole.
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