Sunday 10 / November / 2024
Muscat: The Oman Racing Team powered by Motorbase, according to Sultanate's star Ahmad Al Harthy, are quietly confident of a strong run in the final qualifying session for round two of the Blancpain Endurance Cup season at Silverstone Grand Prix Circuit, after a positive start to the weekend during practice.
Over the course of three track sessions on Saturday, the 34-year-old Omani and his British teammates Jonny Adam and Devon Modell made good progress with the set-up of the No. 44 Aston Martin V12 Vantage GT3 in terms of both qualifying trim and race pace.
Making an excellent start to the second event of the season during the opening Bronze Test on Saturday morning, the Oman Ministry of Sports Affairs, Oman Air, National Bank of Oman (NBO), Barr Al Jissah and Omantel-backed entry finished the run third fastest overall and third in Pro-Am.
Splitting the work load between qualifying and race preparation in the subsequent Free Practice and Pre-Qualifying sessions, the Oman Racing Team trio ended the first day with a best time of two minutes and 00.918 seconds in Pre-Qualifying, sixth in the Pro-Am class and just over a second shy of the outright pace.
After finishing fourth in Pro-Am during the opening race of the season at Monza in Italy last month, Aston Martin Middle East and North Africa ambassador Ahmad says he and his two team-mates will be pushing hard for their first silverware of the campaign in the Silverstone three-hour contest.
“It’s all gone well, it was a typical test and practice day for us,” reflected Ahmad. “We worked hard on the set-up for qualifying and also spent a lot of time working on producing a strong car for the race. It was a fair day, pretty cold as well, but all went to plan and we’re in good shape for this stage of the race weekend.
“Pre-qualifying gave us an understanding of where we are and we’re happy there’s more to come in qualifying, we do need to find a bit more but we’re feeling good. Monza was a great start to the year for us, this weekend is a different style of circuit and offers another long race but we’re quietly confident we should be competitive and able to push for a similar result – perhaps even better.”
Final qualifying for round two of the Blancpain Endurance Cup gets underway at 09.00 UK time this morning with the three-hour race set to begin at 15.00 – live coverage will be streamed online HERE and also screened on Motors TV.
2016 Blancpain Endurance Cup Pro-Am driver standings (after Rd1): 4. Ahmad Al Harthy/Jonny Adam/Devon Modell, 12pts.
2016 Blancpain Endurance Cup Pro-Am Team standings (after Rd1): 4. Oman Racing Team powered by Motorbase, 12pts.
