Al-Azhari and Himmo shine at Bahrain circuit

Al Nabooda Racing’s Karim Al Azhari capped a successful championship campaign with an impressive win at today’s season-ending race of the Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge Middle East. The GT3 Cup was part of the weekend of National Racing at Bahrain International Circuit (BIC), “The Home of Motorsport in the Middle East”. Also part of the event was the BIC 2,000cc Challenge, in which Raed Himmo captured the victory to cap an exciting seventh round. In the Porsche GT3 Cup race, Al Azhari’s winning time of 25 minutes 43.613 seconds meant that he bested teammate Clemens Schmid, who finished just 0.083s behind the leader. Saudi Falcons’ Prince Abdulaziz Al Faisal, meanwhile, earned third place on the podium 5.733s behind the winner, and was ahead of teammate Faisal Binladen, who recorded a 7.525s gap. In fifth place was Zaid Ashkanani of Team BuzaidGT who was 9.222 seconds back, while Manfred Ender of Frijns Structural Steel finished in sixth place with a 9.921s gap. Team Bahrain drivers Mohammed Mattar and Shaikh Hamad bin Isa bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa, meanwhile, earned seventh and eighth places respectively, with gaps of 11.446s and 19.204s. Mr Al-Azhari described his race experience as being “fantastic,” and said he was proud to be part of the championships’ “strongest team.” “In qualifying I had enough to take second position using my old tyres, so once I put the new tyres on, pole position was quite easy,” said the Emirati. “In the race I got a good start and pretty much kept the lead. “I made several mistakes and allowed the cars behind me to pressure me quite heavily, but in the end I had to keep the lead. “I’m really pleased of what we’ve done. It’s been a great year. It was a big question mark at the start, but now we are the champions and it feels great.” Schmid praised his teammate and hailed the first and second position wins as a victory for their team. “I was a bit nervous, I mean it always is when you know you can win a championship,” he said. “I had a great battle with Abdulaziz and Karim, but I couldn\'t pass Karim, so I got second, but we won the championship, so I\'m really happy.” Meanwhile, Prince Abdulaziz Al Faisal said that he enjoyed the season, despite missing out on a higher place on the podium in the season finale. “I tried very hard to push and overtake the guys in the beginning, but it was a crazy race in the front,” he said. “With all the pushing, I think the tyre degradation was high, so I couldn’t maintain the same pace towards the end. “But you live and learn, and you move on. “We learned a lot from this season, I enjoyed it so much, even through all the battles. Hopefully we’ll come back next year even stronger.” Team Bahrain’s Mohammed Mattar, and ATA Freight Line Global’s Cengiz Oguzhan were both given 10 second penalties for jump starts during the race. Meanwhile, Raed Himmo added another feather to his cap today, with a victory at the 2,000cc Challenge. Himmo, who recorded the race’s fastest lap at a total time of 17:24.662, saw off competition from second place Hussain Karimi who was 9.272s behind. In third place was Shaikh Salman bin Isa bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa who had a gap of 12.572s behind the winner, while fourth place was Robin Brown, with a 1:43.547s gap. Tim Birkin was one lap behind the leader at the end of the race. Alex Longden and Shaikh Hamad were not classified. Shaikh Hamad competed in both championships today. At the end of both races, the winners were awarded their respective trophies at the podium ceremony by BIC officials.