Mahmoud Tannir picked up his second straight UAE Sportbikes Championship title after beating out Surya Raja on Friday.
The Lebanese racer won the championship by 41 points – the same total as he won by last year – after winning the final two races of the season.
Going into the final weekend, Tannir needed just two second placed finishes to guarantee a second straight title. In the end, Tannir coasted in to win both the races in style. An ecstatic Tannir couldn’t have been happier to finish the season with two wins.
“Oh God, it was really, really nice,” Tannir told Sport360°. “The nice thing was that we were really comfortable in race two, there was a lot less stress because we won race one. It tastes so much sweeter than last year because of all the struggles, all the hard times.
Tannir’s two wins were made all the more remarkable by the fact that, despite twice earning pole position, the Lebanese planned to give one of the races to Surya Raja. Tannir’s rival ended up finishing the race in fifth place, all but handing the title to the reigning champion before the final race.
“We had a plan not to lead the race and let Surya lead the race so we can see his pace and his strong points. But when we started the race, I had a really good pace and opened up quite a big gap and my race engineer was showing the lap times, and the gap just got bigger and bigger – about six seconds.
“It was hard, I was just pushing and pushing because I thought if we have the chance to win, we will grab it. If we secure a win we can really be in a comfortable position.
“Surya had some problems during the race, I don’t know if it was pressure or anything.”
The second race took a similar path. “We started in pole position, I had an okay start, I did the same thing but I didn’t need to push to the limits. We took what we could and maintained the gap, we really didn’t have to push because we only wanted to finish on a high.
“We noticed the gap wasn’t changing so we ended up winning both races and ultimately the championship.”
Source: Sport360.com
Make sure you support the Lebanese talent by visiting his official Facebook page.