Al Faisal secures second weekend victory
DUBAI: Oman’s Al Faisal al Zubair continued his winning ways into the second day of the new Porsche BWT GT3 Cup Challenge Middle East series season to secure a second win at the first race meeting of the season at the Dubai Autodrome on Saturday.
After securing three pole positions for the three races, the Omani followed up Friday afternoon’s success on the 5.39km circuit with second place in race two and a close victory in race three.
Tio Ellinas managed to pip Al Zubair to the chequered flag to secure the win in race two by 1.258 seconds with Khalid Al Wahaibi reaching the finish in fifth place behind Berkay Besler and fourthplaced Michel de Quesada.
The Oman Team won the Team’s Cup at both races to cap a stunning weekend. The trophies were awarded to Al Faisal’s cousin Mohammed al Zubair in race three and Al Wahaibi’s father Ibrahim in race two.
Al Zubair finished the third of the races just 0.344 seconds in front of Tio Ellinas and eight seconds ahead of third-placed Michel de Quesada. Omani teammate Khalid Al Wahaibi moved up from a starting position of eighth to finish the last of the weekend’s races in an impressive fourth overall.
Al Zubair said: “It (race three) was so much tougher than the first race. It was much quicker in the end. He (Tio) kept on coming and coming at me. The win means so much in the end. I didn’t expect to be defending that much. But the win means more than a second place. I think three poles, two wins and one second place makes a statement. Tio is a very experienced driver. Now we can celebrate the Oman National Day. I dedicate this win to His Majesty (Qaboos bin Said al Said) and Oman on our National Day.”
Sixth-placed Khalid al Wahaibi added: “Temperatures were quite cool for qualifying this morning. The track was completely different, so it was about reading the conditions. I made a mistake at the end of my ‘push-lap’ and that put me in P7 and not P4. Everything has been so close this year and one mistake costs you three or four places. Now it’s about minimising these small mistakes throughout the season.
“We struggled a bit with the brakes in the first race and kept locking up. After race two we checked what it was and solved the issue with the brake bias being too much to the front. We moved the brake bias and it was a huge improvement for race three and we were catching the guys in front. We eventually ran out of laps. The aim is to qualify further up for the next races. Three out of three for Team Oman. It could not be any better really.”
The duo had qualified in pole and seventh positions for race two on Saturday and Al Zubair continued where he had left off by qualifying in pole position for the third race with an impressive lap of 1min 59.860sec in Q3.
Tio Ellinas qualified in third. Al Wahaibi set a best time of 2min 00.949sec and was placed in eighth.
Action resumes in the Porsche BWT GT3 Cup Challenge Middle East in Bahrain on December 7/8.