Motorsport: Oman’s Al Faisal qualifies in 17th for final rounds of Porsche Super Cup in Mexico

Sports Sunday 29/October/2017 14:20 PM
By: Times News Service
Motorsport: Oman’s Al Faisal qualifies in 17th for final rounds of Porsche Super Cup in Mexico

Mexico City: Al Faisal Al Zubair qualified in 17th position for the final two rounds of the Porsche Mobil 1 Super Cup at Mexico’s Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez circuit.
Pole winning Norwegian driver Dennis Olsen will go head-to-head with Germany’s Michael Ammermuller to decide the outcome of the prestigious 11-round one-make race series.
Omani Al Zubair ran for 13 laps in the qualifying session with his Lechner Racing Porsche 911 GT3 and carded a best time of two minutes and 11.934 seconds, which was just 1.3 seconds down on the pole-winning time of two minutes and 11.930 seconds set by Olsen, the recently-crowned Porsche Carrera Cup Germany champion.
Australia’s Matt Campbell was a mere one-tenth of a second behind the Norwegian and edged Ammermuller out of second place on the grid by a mere 16/100ths of a second. Thomas Preining and Dan Cammish rounded off the top five, although thirty drivers took to the course.
“We qualified in position 17 for both of the races, but I think it was P15 for both of the races without the guest drivers who are not registered for championship points,” said FZ Racing’s Al Faisal.
“It should have been better. We had quite a good lap but the yellow flags came out and ruined that lap. Then, on my second one, I could not maximise my tyres as well as before and I got blocked. It is a very tricky circuit and the first time I am here.”
Ammermuller topped the times in Friday afternoon’s training. Al Zubair’s teammate carded a best lap of one minute and 44.809 seconds during a 20lap stint on the circuit.
Campbell and Mattia Drudi were his closest rivals, while Olsen was fourth. Al Zubair ran for 21 laps, and clocked a best lap of one minute and 46.098 seconds, which put him 18th in the rankings from the 30 starters.