Monday 18 / November / 2024
Muscat: The Red Bull Transition debut in Oman and the region was met with the utmost success, with the motorsport-centric event testing the love of simulated driving in the country and garnering 105 registrations.
The tournament’s two-day qualifiers, which took place at the Oman Automobile Association on September 15 and 16, saw 58 participants pushing their e-drifting power to the limit on the “Asseto Corsa” drifting map, with the top 17 moving on to the final stage, held in the Mall of Oman on the 23rd of September.
The qualifiers’ top 3 positions were mostly dominated by the “Family of Drifters”: Osama Al Amri, Ahmed Al Amri, and Omar Al Amri. Ahmed—who is the 2021 Red Bull Car Park Drift World Champion—Omar, and Osama grew up competing against each other in simulated car racing at their family home and all three brothers have the passion for cars, drifting, and racing.
During the Red Bull Transition qualifiers, the brothers held down a tight unit, pushing, praising, and supporting each other to make it to the top positions and moving on to the finals, where one or three of them could potentially hold the podium positions.
After the qualifiers, the top 17 went head-to-head on the virtual Red Bull Car Park Drift course from the Oman 2022 track, which was equipped with a fully immersive simulator for a hyper realistic e-drifting experience. At the end of the finals, Omar Al Amri emerged a winner and was crowned the Red Bull Transition Champion. On the podium with him were Usama Al Amri in second place with 6 points difference than Omar and Muhanad Al Abri in third place.
“I had a gut-feeling I would dominate that podium, and thankfully I came out on top! – Omar Al Amri
The finals, which took place in the Mall of Oman near the Red Bull MOBILE store, saw all the participants competing in the NISSAN 400 Z Red Bull Car Park Drift car. During the event, customers of the mall were granted first access, and crowds gathered to witness the exciting showdown. In parallel, Red Bull MOBILE held a drift karting activation, where participants and the audience got to test their drift-karting skills in a miniature Red Bull Car Park Drift track in the mall.
The tournament had a judging panel that included all-star Red Bull Car Park Drift judges, as well as Oman’s star athlete and drifting champion, Haitham Al Hadidi, who assessed the players’ drifting and technical skills, and gave out scores based on smoke, car sound, spiral gates, flippers, and spinners.
‘It was a strong competition between all participants, and it was exciting and huge for us, as it is the first event in Oman. The idea of this event is to transform these talents and assess that they may emerge as future drifters of our country – Haitham Al Hadidi
Along with being Red Bull Transition’s first champion, Omar Al Amri, will have a chance to experience Red Bull Car Park Drift World Final in Saudi Arabia, as part of the winning prize.
