The 9th and 10th rounds of the Porsche GT3 CCME championship took place on Qatar’s Losail MotoGP track under the amazing floodlights designed for night racing. The track which is characterized with its long high speed corners saw a huge competition between, ATF and Clemens Shcmid on one side, and between Faisal Binladen, Karim Al Azhari and Zeid Ashkarani on the other side.
The 9th round saw ATF start from the 3rd place, while Faisal started 5th, but both drivers had excellent runs to the first corner where ATF jumped to 2nd and Faisal jumped to 3rd. ATF pushed Schmid hard for the first place but was unable to overtake him especially that the circuit is full of high speed corners and with identical cars, its very difficult to overtake. ATF managed to finish second to keep his hopes alive in the championship. On the other hand Faisal finished on the top of the Silver category to increase the gap with championship direct competitor, Zeid Ashkanani.
Moving to the 10th round ATF started the race 2nd and followed Schmid closely over the whole course of the race, but was unable to overtake again. Schmid was able to defend ATF off, and went on to take his 8th win this year. Faisal Binladen had a very busy race where he went into the mix between Karim Azhari and Zeid Ashkanani but was able to clinch second place in the Silver category behind Denmark’s Christina Neilson and increase the gap again at the top of the Silver Category championship.
Clemens Schmid leads the drivers championship with 228 points ahead of Abdulaziz Al Faisal with 218 points. Karim Al-Azhari is in third with 180 points and Faisal Binladen is 4th with 161points. Faisal Binladen leads the Silver category with 161 points ahead of Bahrain’s Mohammad Mattar with 146 points. In the Teams championship Nabooda Racing extended their lead to 28 points ahead of the Saudi Falcons.
Quoting the drivers after the race, Faisal told us: “Thank God I was able to maintain my lead in the Silver category championship, where I won a race and finished 2nd in another one this weekend. It was my first time at this track and i was facing a problem with the way the floodlights where positioned since they face your eyes directly and distract you. The track is based of fast corners and it really challenges you to keep your car on the track while still maintaining high speeds. We will start preparing for both Bahrain rounds hoping to clinch the Silver title there.”
ATF also added: “I entered this weekend eyeing a win to decrease the gap with Schmid, who was able to grab the lead at Reem where I lost 16 points due to the accident I had. I was not able to win here but I scored 2 second place finishes and was able to challenge Clemens over the 2 races. The championship is not over and I will head to Bahrain eyeing the win and hoping to defend my crown.”
