Team Abu Dhabi Racing by Black Falcon qualified in 3rd for the Gulf 12 Hours at the iconic Yas Marina Grand Prix Circuit on Friday.
Abu Dhabi Racing’s Khaled Al Qubaisi, who is fresh from securing a third overall team championship in the FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC), and team-mates Jeroen Bleekemolen and Bernd Schneider are hoping to defend their title when the first half of the race is run from 09:00-15:00 on Saturday morning and the second half under lights from 18:00 to midnight.
In his 15-minute qualifying run, Al Qubaisi clocked a best lap of 2 minutes 12.028 seconds while team-mates Schneider and Bleekemolen had times of 2 minutes 10.839 seconds and 2 minutes 10.305 seconds respectively during their 15-minute run each, for an overall average of 2 minutes 11.57 seconds.
Al Qubaisi said ahead of the race that he is in a positive frame of mind and is looking forward to the endurance, even though he has not been behind the wheel of a SLS AMG GT3 for nearly a year having campaigned in a Porsche 911 RSR in the WEC during that period.
After the 15-minute qualifying on Friday, Al Qubaisi said: “I finished fourth in my qualifying round, I could have been either second or third but I think I’ve lost about 0.3 seconds on one of the sector. The grid this year is very tough and it won’t be an easy mission but we will give it our all in order to defend our title.”
Schneider, who finished his qualifying in third, said: “Overall the car is in good shape and the feel is goo; just that I found the steering was shaking a bit. We’ll have a look at it tonight.”
And Bleekemolen, who topped his qualifying round, added: “I had a very good lap; I got the maximum out of the car, at least nearly the maximum. But it’s going to be tough because there are three or four cars that are fast out there and it’s going to be tough defending the title. But we will fight for victory tomorrow for sure.”