Monday 23 / December / 2024
ABU DHABI: Oman’s Al-Faisal Al-Zubair, Germany’s Luca Stolz and Austrian Martin Konrad head to the Yas Marina circuit in Abu Dhabi for the concluding two rounds of the compact 2023 Asian Le Mans Series this weekend.
Held over two back-to-back race meetings and two sets of four-hour endurance races at the Dubai Autodrome and Yas Marina, the series attracted a record 48 entries across three classes.
Al-Zubair, Stolz and Konrad compete in the Al-Manar Racing by Haupt Racing Team Mercedes AMG GT3 under the Omani national flag in the GT class.
They claimed a podium finish at the first race in Dubai last Friday but confusion over the time drivers could spend in the cockpit cost them a drive-through penalty in race two and that dropped them down to an eventual seventh place.
Al-Zubair said: “I was not really happy with the result in Dubai to be honest.I think I will come out stronger in Abu Dhabi than Dubai. We did really well at Yas Marina in Gulf 12. I am looking forward to the weekend. Hopefully we can get a couple of wins.”
Back-to-back wins in Dubai for the Walkenhorst Motorsport BMW M4, crewed by Chandler Hull, Nicky Catsburg and Thomas Merrill, mean that they lead the GT class standings heading to Abu Dhabi.
The Getspeed Mercedes AMG GT3 of Raffaele Marciello, Fabian Schiller and Florian Scholze finished second in both races and holds a similar position in the standings. Third and seventh places in Dubai have put the Al-Manar Racing by Haupt Racing Team Mercedes AMG GT3 in third place.
The first of two 90-minute practice sessions gets underway at 13.30hrs on Friday and the second is scheduled for 17.15hrs.
GT qualifying takes centre stage from 10.40hrs on Saturday morning (February 18th) and the first of the Abu Dhabi races fires into life at 15.00hrs, starting in broad daylight and finishing in darkness.
Race two and the last round of the 2023 Asian Le Mans Series will be flagged away at the slightly later time of 16.00hrs on Sunday (February 19th).
