(MENAFN- Muscat Daily) Teenaged motorsports stars - Al Faisal Al Zubair and Khalid Al Wahaibi - gave Oman twin reasons to celebrate in the Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge Middle East series at the Dubai Autodromeon Friday.
Competing in the second round of the series featuring the third and fourth races, Al Faisal, who is a strong contender for the overall title, sent out a strong signal of his intent as he claimed the pole position and then sealed the third race in style for his first race win of the season, which began last month in Bahrain.
The victory in the third race and podium finishes in the earlier two races catapulted Al Faisal to top of overall leaderboard ahead of the fourth race.
Khalid Al Wahaibi
Khalid, who is making his debut in the series, also impressed as he finished on top in the GCC Rookie class and eighth overall to pick up points. The strong display by rookie Khalid in the first two races got him promoted to Silver category and he came fourth among the eight drivers.
The sensational performances by the teenagers augur well for Oman motorsports and Al Faisal was delighted to have claimed his first win if season and taking the leader's spot.
Al Faisal of the Lechner Racing Middle East said,'First qualifying was really good and I got pole by almost four-tenths (of a second).
'We knew we had the pace and it was good to start in the best position. We had to make it count. My start was not so good and Charlie (Frijns) got passed me. But I knew, with new tyres, I had to overtake him on the first lap and I did and then (Tom) Oliphant was behind me.
'I opened the gap early on and got consistent timings, lap-after-lap. I am very happy with that. Qualifying for the second race will be a bit more difficult. I am using used tyres and the others will be using new, but a top three position is the target and a second win.'
Khalid was happy with his start on his maiden visit to Dubai Autodrome.
The 17 year old American British Academy student said, 'I had a decent start. I ended free practice in P5, which showed an improvement from the first round in Bahrain. In qualifying, I had a mistake on my fastest lap and ended up in P8, when P5 would have been an ideal position.
'I started the race in P8. I managed to fend off a few challenges from behind and stuck in and fought for my position. I kept pushing and caught the three silver drivers in front of me. However, I made a few mistakes and struggled with the tyres towards the end of the race. We learn from this and move forward.'
Oliphant finished as runner-up to Al Faisal and Germany's Wolfgang Triller rounded off the podium positions, with Frijns down in fourth place and Sweden's Magnus Oehman winning the silver category in fifth.
Al Faisal took pole position with a winning lap of one minute 59.720 seconds. Khalid led the rookies on to the grid in eighth place.
Earlier, Al Faisal topped the times in the opening practice sessionon Thursdaywith a best lap of 2min 44.2401sec and Khalid was an impressive seventh.
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