Wednesday 30 / October / 2024
Muscat: Oman’s Al-Faisal bin Khalid Al-Zubair, Austrian Dominik Baumann and Canadian Mikaël Grenier will represent the Al-Manar Racing by Getspeed Team at the third round of the 2024 Fanatec GT World Challenge powered by AWS Endurance Cup at Germany’s legendary Nürburgring this weekend (July 27th-28th).
After finishing second in the Gold Cup category at the opening round in France in their Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo, the trio joined forces with Philip Ellis to claim a stunning Gold Cup victory at the flagship Crowdstrike 24 Hours of Spa at the end of last month.
That success has catapulted the trio into contention for both the Teams’ and Drivers’ titles and they arrive in the Rhineland-Palatinate region of western Germany trailing the Saintéloc Racing trio of Paul Evrard, Gilles Magnus and Jim Pla by a single point in both championships. 2 Seas Motorsport are 23 points adrift in third place.
Al-Faisal said: “I am very excited for the third round of the GT World Challenge Endurance. I am really looking forward to it. The momentum has been going great with second in the first round and first at Spa 24.
“Hopefully, we can carry on this momentum and take it to the Nürburgring with us. This weekend will be Mik (Grenier), Dominik (Baumann) and myself. Philip won’t be with us – he just joined for Spa 24. Hopefully we can have a good result for the team.”
After bronze tests on Friday, the official two-hour free practice session gets underway at 10.00hrs (CET) on Saturday morning (July 27th). Pre-qualifying then follows from 13.15hrs. There is a 50-car field across the Pro, Gold, Silver and Bronze racing categories.
Official qualifying for this year’s round of the Fanatec GT World Challenge powered by AWS Endurance Cup will take place on a hectic Sunday (July 28th) from 08.45hrs, with each driver permitted 15 minutes on the famous track in the Eifel mountains.
After races for the FFSA F4 French Championship, GT1 Sports Club by Curbstone, Lamborghini Super Trofeo and McLaren Trophy Europe entrants, the three-hour third round of the GT World Challenge fires into life at 15.00hrs.
2024 Fanatec GT World Challenge powered by AWS Endurance Cup – latest standings:
Teams
1. Saintéloc Racing ` 63pts
2. Al-Manar Racing by Getspeed 62pts
3. 2 Seas Motorsport 39pts
4. Haupt Racing Team 36pts
5. Tresor Attempto Racing 33pts
6. CSA Racing 23pts
Drivers
1. Paul Evrard/Gilles Magnus/Jim Pla 63pts
2. Al-Faisal Al-Zubair/Dominik Baumann/Mikaël Grenier 62pts
3. Philip Ellis 43pts
4. Isa Al-Khalifa/Martin Kodric/Lewis Williams 39pts
5. Ugo de Wilde 38pts, etc
