In a Saturday that saw both round 2 and 3 from the Lebanese Karting championship we had a small chat with Mr. Ziad Jamous from ATCL who is also a FIA observer. With Mr. Jamous we talked a bit about ROL 2011 and the 2 karting races of Saturday the 8th of Ocotber.
This is the first time we catch you after the Rally of Lebanon 2011. How did you see the rally and how can you summarize it for us?
The rally in general had no major technical problems. I am also happy with the performance of the guys on the ground. Like every race, there will be accidents and retirements but everything was controlled and we had no casualties.
The big thing we noticed this year is the media coverage. It was exceptional this year. We had good coverage in terms of TVs Radios and websites. We can say that we had a media revolution this year. This is very good for the sport. This will help encourage the increase in the number of sponsors and the size of their contribution. As we all know sponsors will come where they benefit from media coverage.
We hope that the uprising of Lebanese motorsports will reflect on the region where it seeing a downfall lately and will help rejuvenate the sport in the region. We also hope that our Lebanese drivers get encouraged to go and participate in foreign events.
How did you see the competition between Nasser and Roger in ROL?
I mentioned earlier on the radio interview we had at “Sawt el Mada” with Jad Deaibess that the competition will be very tough and when asked who will I answered that the winner will be the man with the least mistakes. Both made some mistakes and both suffered from tyre graining. Nasser’s mistake in Bteghrine cost him the whole rally. Nasser proved he is an excellent driver and congratulations to Roger for the win.
Moving to the Lebanese Karting Championship we saw today a race for one category. Why is that?
First of all we have to remember that all schools have started which makes it very difficult for the young drivers to participate. In the Micro category we didn’t have enough registered drivers to start the race. In the Mini Max category we had an injury for Christophe Rizk which also led us to lose the needed number of participants to start the race. In the junior category we had 7 participants so the race started.
How did you find the 2 Junior races today?
Well the level is very close. They are all competing on points so it’s looking good. We expected them to be more aggressive but in the pre-race briefing we made sure to inform them that they should be playing fair. We saw 2 fair races and the competition for the win was limited to the Njeim brothers and Micheal Patrick Azar. Patrick Njeim was able to claim both wins.
We saw a small arguments post the first race on the issue of a jump start. How do you see it from your point of you?
We had no jump start from my point of you and from the place I was standing. After all we have no electric marker, and it’s more depending on one’s eyes. The drivers were ready on my flag and took an aggressive start and this doesn’t mean it’s a jump start.