Oman’s Al-Faisal Al-Zubair again teams up with Germany’s Fabian Schiller and Zimbabwe’s Axcil Jeffries for the three-hour round of the 2022 Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe Powered by AWS Endurance Cup at Hockenheim this weekend (September 2-4).
The trio race their usual Mercedes-AMG GT3 under the Al-Manar Racing by HRT banner in the Silver Cup. They will be hoping to bounce back from an early retirement at the recent TotalEnergies 24 Hours of Spa, which dropped them to third in the Silver Endurance Cup Drivers’ standings.
I am looking forward to the race, three hours at Hockenheim. Unfortunately, I did not test there personally, as I had schooling commitments. My two team-mates did test there. It was quite positive. I’m excited to getting back in the car after the Spa incident. Hopefully, we get a good bunch of results and keep up the momentum before the last round in Barcelona.
Al-Faisal Al-Zubair
Benjamin Goethe, Thomas Neubauer and Jean-Baptiste Simmenauer lead the standings on 84 points, and a strong result could see the Audi R8 LMS GT3 trio clinch the title before the Spanish finale. Al-Zubair and the Al-Manar Racing by HRT team are just six points behind second-placed Nicolas Schöll, Alex Aka and Marius Zug.
Timetable
The 4.574km German circuit hosted the FIA Formula One World Championship until 2019 and also stages DTM races. GT World Challenge Europe teams can take part in a paid test from 14.00hrs on Thursday (September 1), before administrative and technical checks on Friday.
A 90-minute free practice session starts at 09.45hrs on Saturday, followed by 90 minutes of pre-qualifying from 14.05hrs.
Sharing the weekend with the GT4 European Series, Clio Cup and MitJet2L Trophy Italy, the first of three 15-minute qualifying sessions starts at 09.45hrs on Sunday, with each driver doing one session. The three-hour race starts at 15.00hrs.