SEPANG, MALAYSIA – Al-Manar Racing by Getspeed’s Al-Faisal Al-Zubair, Martin Konrad and Fabian Schiller finished fourth in GT in both four-hour races at the opening round of the 2023/24 Asian Le Mans Series at a rain-soaked Sepang International Circuit, their first visit to the track in their Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo.
Sunday’s second race finished under yellow, with Pure Rxcing’s Klaus Bachler, Joel Sturm and Alex Malykhin winning in a Porsche 911 GT3 R. Schiller brought the car home fourth behind a Saintéloc Racing Audi and Optimum Motorsport’s McLaren 720S GT3.
Fourth place today but, to sum it up, it was a very positive result after everything that happened. Martin had contact with two cars and we got a drive-through penalty and a stop-and-go penalty. Bringing that into account, it was a very good result. We got a bit lucky with the safety car timing but we had a great pit stop in the end to jump five cars and be in P4.
Al-Faisal Al-Zubair
But, unfortunately, with the damage we had on the car, it was difficult to go up to P3. Nonetheless, after being last with a drive-through we should be very happy with the results. We leave here third in the championship going on to our strong tracks in Dubai and Abu Dhabi. Overall, I think we should be happy.
Al-Faisal Al-Zubair
Race one
In Saturday’s race, a deluge in the final half-hour ruined conditions and the race was red-flagged with 10 minutes left. Saintéloc’s Christopher Haase, Gilles Magnus and Alban Varutti won, ahead of Attempto Racing’s Dylan Pereira, Alex Aka and Andrey Mukovoz and the second Saintéloc Audi of Dennis Marschall, Paul Evrard and Zhou Bihuang.
Martin had a bit of contact at the first corner but the car seemed okay. We were fourth after the start and then I felt the car was quite good in my stint. Unfortunately, I made a little mistake passing a car under a safety car restart, which had slowed down enough for me to think there was a problem and I wanted to avoid an accident. We got a drive-through penalty for that and finished fourth in the race. Nonetheless, it’s good points for the championship for a track where we came for the first time.
Al-Faisal Al-Zubair
Al-Zubair had built a lead of around five seconds when torrential rain arrived with just over half an hour left. He pitted for full wets and handed over to Schiller. Schiller dropped to eighth, then climbed to fifth with 24 minutes left and, with Pereira, passed Marco Mapelli’s Leipert Motorsport Lamborghini. He was closing on the third-placed Audi after 93 laps when standing water brought out the safety car and then the red flag.
Practice and qualifying
Konrad ran 31 laps in Friday’s first practice, topped by the AF Corse Ferrari 296 GT3 with 2min 04.476sec among 23 GT cars. The Al-Manar Mercedes was fastest in second practice with 2min 04.901sec, ahead of Maxime Oosten’s Team Project 1 BMW M4 GT3 (2min 05.487sec). In qualifying, the car was fourth in Q1, topped by Saintéloc’s Audi with 2min 03.998sec, and second in Q2 behind Craft-Bamboo Racing’s Mercedes with 2min 04.889sec.
The championship continues with the 4H of Dubai on February 4, 2024.