Oman’s Al-Faisal Al-Zubair, Germany’s Luca Stolz and Austria’s Martin Konrad completed their first Asian Le Mans Series outing together with third and seventh places in the two four-hour races at the Dubai Autodrome at the weekend.
Racing the Al-Manar Racing by Haupt Racing Team Mercedes-AMG GT3 under the Omani flag, the trio finished on the podium in Saturday evening’s first race, and Al-Zubair took over for the final stint of Sunday’s second race to bring the car home seventh.
We had a good qualifying with P2 for both races. On Saturday, we converted P2 into P3 in the race. So that was a podium finish on our first race in Asian Le Mans. That was amazing.
Al-Faisal Al-Zubair
For the second race fortunes did not go on our side. It was great until the final hour. Unfortunately, we messed up something with the drive time. I drove a little less than the minimum, 45 minutes, and we had to come back to the pits. Because of that, we also had a drive-through penalty as well. I had to do the double stint. Finishing seventh is decent out of 24 but, knowing that we should have been on the podium, I am not really happy with the result to be honest. Hopefully next week we come back stronger in Abu Dhabi.
Al-Faisal Al-Zubair
Practice and qualifying
HRT made a strong start in the first of two practice sessions on Friday on the 5.39km, 16-turn circuit. The Mercedes completed 35 laps and set the second fastest GT time of 1min 58.324sec, behind the Getspeed Mercedes of Raffaele Marciello, Fabian Schiller and Florian Scholze.
The Getspeed car topped second practice too with 1min 58.105sec, while the HRT Mercedes was sixth on 1min 59.068sec.
Practice went off quite well. Martin (Konrad) was quite strong from the start, our bronze driver. We were all quite happy with Martin’s performance, myself and Lucas. We knew we had a good package.
Al-Faisal Al-Zubair
The team saved their best for Saturday morning’s qualifying, where Konrad’s 1min 58.016sec put them second on the grid for the first four-hour race. Pole went to the Walkenhorst Motorsport BMW M4 of Chandler Hull, Nicky Catsburg and Thomas Merrill.
The races
The Walkenhorst BMW converted pole into victory in race one, completing 112 laps 15.126 seconds ahead of the Getspeed Mercedes. Al-Zubair, Stolz and Konrad completed the podium in an excellent third out of 22 GT finishers. The race began in bright sunshine and ended in darkness, with the top four all completing 112 laps.
The HRT crew were second fastest in Sunday morning’s warm-up, behind the TF Sport Aston Martin of John Hartshorne, Jonathan Adam and Henrique Chaves.
Konrad started the second four-hour race from second on the grid. The team ran in the top four for long periods but dropped to seventh after the drive-time error and drive-through penalty, and held that position to the finish after 109 laps.
The Walkenhorst BMW won again, with the Getspeed Mercedes second and an AF Corse Ferrari third.
Rounds three and four of the Asian Le Mans Series take place at Yas Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi next weekend.