Thursday 25 / April / 2024
Barcelona: Oman’s Al-Faisal Al-Zubair began his 2019 Porsche Mobil 1 Super Cup campaign in superb fashion by qualifying in a career-best eighth of the 28 drivers for Sunday’s opening round at Barcelona’s 4.655km Circuit de Catalunya.
The Lechner Racing Middle East driver had impressed during a handful of laps in the practice session and he continued with his progress in the highly competitive qualifying session that was won by Julien Andlauer.
Al-Zubair said: “I am very happy with my qualifying position. It is my best performance in the Porsche Super Cup so far, P8, and I also had P8 in practice. Now for the race, I need to make sure I stay in the front pack and stay with the drivers and hopefully finish in the top eight. That would be great.”
The first practice session of the new season was held on Friday afternoon and Andlauer set the fastest lap of 1min 48.883sec to beat Al-Zubair’s team-mate and defending champion Michael Ammermüller. Tio Ellinas finished third.
A new season and the experience of winning the Porsche BWT GT3 Cup Challenge Middle East title for a second time helped Al-Zubair as well and the Omani finished the session in impressive fashion with the eighth fastest time – the best lap of 1min 49.660sec – during his nine laps on the circuit.
Twenty-eight drivers took part in the practice stint, although technical issues with the car prevented Al-Zubair running for more laps.
Andlauer went on to claim pole position for the first race with a best lap of 1min 47.869sec on Saturday. Rookie Ayhancan Güven was second and was sandwiched in by Andlauer’s team-mate - BWT Lechner Racing’s third-placed Ammermüller.
Al-Zubair ran for nine laps during the season’s first qualifying session and clocked a best lap of 1min 48.631sec.
The opening round of the Porsche Mobil 1 Super Cup was scheduled for 14 laps on Sunday on Barcelona’s Circuit de Catalunya.
