Tuesday 06 / May / 2025
MUSCAT: Oman Racing with TF Sport’s trio of Ahmad al Harthy, Michael Dinan and Charlie Eastwood, managed their season-best eighth-place finish in round two of the FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) in Portimao, Portugal, on Sunday.
The race turned out to be more challenging than expected for the Aston Martin drivers during the 6 Hours of Portimao. Going into the second round race, the team had hoped to push for a stronger finish after Al Harthy had qualified at a competitive fifth fastest in GTE Am, just half a second from pole position.
Struggling for pace, despite a great set-up, the Aston Martin team had to be satisfied with a season’s best, top-eight finish.
Dinan took the wheel for the start of the race, and although he was initially challenged he managed to keep the fifth place. Despite losing some time on lap five, he chipped away to take fourth place around the 50-minute mark.
Just before the first hour, the opening round of pit-stops began and Dinan emerged in fifth. Midway through hour two he began to come under pressure and slid to sixth. At the second set of pit-stops at the end of second hour, Al Harthy climbed aboard the Aston Martin and emerged in seventh - with one of the leading cars yet to pit.
Determined to try and gain some ground, the Omani - supported by the Oman Ministry of Culture, Sports and Youth, OQ, Omantel and MHD-ITICS - was also mindful of keeping the car intact. Later during hour three Al Harthy moved up into fifth position before serving his first pit-stop as the race tipped into its second half.
Holding seventh when he rejoined the action, the Omani moved back into sixth a short while later but halfway through his second stint the Aston Martin driver slipped to seventh and then ninth with the outright pace just not there to extract from the car.
The team’s ‘Pro’ driver Eastwood took over the car with just under two hours of racing to go and after dropping to ninth he reclaimed eighth. Remaining there into the
final hour, following the last pit-stop he continued in eighth where he stayed to the checked flag.
After the race, Al Harthy said: “We had a perfect strategy, perfect performance from all of the drivers - we all drove perfectly in the race. Unfortunately, though, we were no match for our competitors as we clearly lacked the power we needed to be competitive in Portimao. With no interruptions in the race with Safety Cars, it only magnified the difference in our performance.
“There are positives, and hopefully the organisers will re-evaluate the performance comparisons between us and our competitors. There’s nothing else we could have done, so hopefully we will be back at Spa in a few weeks’ time with a much better performance. Eighth was the best we could do, we were the best Aston and we couldn’t have climbed any higher. It was out of our hands.”
There are less than two weeks to wait for the third event of the FIA World Endurance Championship, the 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps, which will take place in Belgium on Saturday, April 29.
FIA WEC GTE Am Driver Standings:
• 14th Ahmad Al Harthy/Michael Dinan/Charlie Eastwood, 7 pts
2023 FIA WEC GTE Am Team Standings:
• 11th Oman Racing with TF Sport, 7 pts
