Monday 21 / July / 2025
MISANO (ITALY): Al-Manar Racing by Team WRT’s Al-Faisal Al-Zubair and German colleague Jens Klingmann overcame the disappointment of a first-lap retirement from race one to finish fourth in the Gold Cup category in race two at the 2025 GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS Sprint Series on Sunday.
At the wheel of their BMW M4 GT3 EVO, the duo performed well in the practice and qualifying sessions at the demanding Misano track in Italy, but Al-Zubair was handed a 10-place penalty on the starting grid for race two after the disappointment of the premature retirement from race one.
The second race was red-flagged in the early stages and there was a significant delay while circuit armco was repaired. It developed into the longest one-hour race in history and took 3hr 18min to complete by the time the safety aspect of the circuit run-off area had been secured.
Al-Zubair eventually handed over to Klingmann for the final 30 minutes but the Al-Manar Racing duo could not make further in-roads and had to settle for fourth place in the Gold Cup category and 20th overall behind the Emil Frey Racing Ferrari, the Saintéloc Racing Audi and the race one-winning Garage 59 McLaren.
Oman-based Al-Zubair said: “It was a long race and I think it was a bit difficult because we had a grid penalty to start. We started P32 (overall) but the car felt mega the whole race. We made it up to P21 in my stint but, unfortunately, we lost a bit of time in the pits, about seven seconds, and that dropped us out of P3 in Gold Cup.
“We finished P4. After collecting no points in the first race on Saturday, it was difficult and not the best weekend for us. We hope to collect more points at the next one and continue the fight for the championship.
“In race one, there was a bit of contact at turn six between my team-mate Jens, Chris Lulham and Maxime Martin. We were out of the race but we also got a penalty, so to finish P4 today is a result we should be happy with. Having the car working so well all weekend made it even more frustrating.”
Al-Zubair and Klingmann made the perfect start to their race weekend by topping the times in the free practice session on Friday afternoon. They ran for 49 laps with a fastest run of 1min 33.026sec to lead the way from Emil Frey Racing and Saintéloc Racing. They then went on to top the Gold Cup times in the evening’s pre-qualifying session.
Klingmann finished first qualifying in second place behind Lulham in the Emil Frey Racing Ferrari and would line up in second place in the Gold Cup category and eighth overall on the grid for the first of the one-hour races. The Garage 59 McLaren was third.
But lady luck determined that Klingmann’s challenge for honours in the first of the races would be short-lived: after a twilight start, the German was clouted from behind after a few turns of lap one and was only able to limp to the pits with rear suspension damage before the Al-Manar Racing BMW was sidelined.
The incident also took out pole sitter Lulham and the Briton’s demise paved the way for Louis Prette to secure victory in the Gold Cup section for the Garage 59 McLaren after 36 laps of racing. The Monaco driver came home just ahead of Gilles Magnus in the Saintéloc Racing Audi and Leonardo Moncini in the Tresor Attempto Racing Audi. Ricky Collard retired the Barwell Motorsport Lamborghini after 11 laps.
The race one disappointment left Al-Zubair with it all to do in Sunday morning’s qualifying for the second race. Magnus claimed pole for Saintéloc Racing and the Omani settled into fourth place with a best run of 1min 32.952sec after the BMW had been repaired by Team WRT technicians. Unfortunately, Al-Zubair was then handed a five-place penalty on the starting grid, as a result of the incident involving his team-mate in race one. A team appeal had successfully reduced the penalty from an original 10-place drop on the starting grid.
The 2025 GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS Sprint Series resumes with round four at Magny-Cours in France on August 1st-3rd.
