Oman’s Al-Faisal Al-Zubair and team-mates Fabian Schiller, Axcil Jeffries and Daniel Morad were forced out of the 74th TotalEnergies 24 Hours of Spa after 58 laps and less than three hours of racing.
Schiller and Al-Zubair had dominated the early stages of the Silver Cup and run as high as sixth overall when Théo Nouet’s Beechdean AMR Aston Martin went into the barriers at Les Combles, triggering an immediate full-course yellow.
Al-Zubair could not slow in time and hit the back of the slowing Allied Racing Porsche (#74), and the damage to the Al-Manar Racing by HRT Mercedes-AMG GT3 ended the Omani’s race.
Victory in the flagship round of the 2022 Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe Powered by AWS went to the series-leading Team WRT Audi of Benjamin Goethe, Thomas Neubauer and Jean-Baptiste Simmenauer, who completed 533 laps just ahead of the Attempto Racing Audi of Marius Zug, Juuso Puhakka, Nicholas Schöll and Alex Aka. The Emil Frey Racing Lamborghini of Tuomas Tujula, Stuart White and Konsta Lappalainen completed the podium.
It was a very tough race. It started amazing. It was the best qualifying of my life so far, Q1 and pole position for myself. Then, with the team average we made it into Super Pole with all the Pro drivers. We were in the top 20 and there were 25 Pro Cars.
Al-Faisal Al-Zubair
Fabi (Schiller) started the race in P8 overall, which was amazing. We had a really good stint and moved into P6. During my stint, there was a full-course yellow where we usually have to be 80km/h at the one-second mark before it gets to zero.
Al-Faisal Al-Zubair
But, unfortunately, at 10 seconds, am amateur driver was in front of me and, once he heard the course yellow call, he slammed on the brakes and, at that speed, it was too late to manoeuvre around or do anything and we had quite a big impact and the race was over for us. This was definitely a tough pill to swallow. Hopefully better the next time.
Al-Faisal Al-Zubair
Race and Super Pole
After a competitive warm-up, the team set 2min 16.774sec in the Super Pole session before the race, ninth fastest behind eight Pro Cup cars and well ahead of Silver Cup rivals Team WRT.
Schiller made a great start, moving from third to the Silver Cup lead shortly after the first hour and holding off Team WRT and Emil Frey Racing.
Al-Zubair took over at the start of the third hour and stayed ahead of Team WRT and the Garage 59 McLaren until the accident on lap 59.
Practice and qualifying
In free practice the team posted 2min 18.76sec, just 0.90 seconds off the pace in a fiercely contested session in which the Attempto Racing Audi R8 set the fastest Silver lap of 2min 18.631sec.
A short pre-qualifying session preceded four 15-minute qualifying sessions. The Al-Manar Racing by HRT Mercedes topped Q1 with 2min 18.147sec, 0.182 seconds clear of the Attempto Audi.
Pro Cup cars dominated Q2, where the team’s 2min 18.738sec was eighth among the Silver Cup runners. Pro cars again led Q3, and a 2min 17.863sec lap put the Al-Manar Mercedes second in Silver behind the Tresor by Car Collection Audi of Daniele di Amato, Lorenzo Patrese, Alberto di Folco and Pierre-Alexandre Jean.
Another superb Q4 brought the second fastest overall lap of 2min 16.612sec, and with the four sessions combined the team started third in Silver Cup behind the pole-winning Emil Frey Racing Lamborghini and the Team WRT Audi of Simmenauer, Goethe and Neubauer.