Bahrainis dominate

Manama : Ireland’s Ryan Cullen raced to victory from pole position in the first race of the second round of Season 8 of the Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge Middle East at the Dubai Autodrome.

Team Bahrain drivers Shaikh Isa A. Al Khalifa and Shaikh Isa S. Al Khalifa both reached the podium in their categories for the third time already this season, an impressive result considering it was the teenagers’ debut performance.

Cullen’s second win of the season was untroubled throughout at the front of the competitive grid and finished 0.563 seconds clear of Qatar-based driver Charlie Frijns, who finished where he started the race in second.

After finishing third in the bronze and second in the Porsche GCC rookie category Shaikh Isa S. Al Khalifa said: “The race was very difficult today. I had a good start and managed to go from 12th on the grid up to 8th, the safety car then came out after an incident and with the race being slowed down making the car difficult to drive. I lost quite a few positions but I continued to push and managed to finish third in the bronze category and second in the rookie category and knowing the track better, hope for a stronger result.”

Teammate Shaikh Isa A. Al Khalifa also did well to navigate himself around the tricky track with no prior experience on the circuit. The young driver still managed a third place podium finish in his category and said, “The race was really good and I managed to finish third in my category and hopefully the second round I can do better as I learn the track and build on the result.”

There was a huge crowd in perfect warm conditions and a tightly packed grid with only two seconds separating the top ten places in qualifying. But the race didn’t quite live up to the excitement of the opening round in Bahrain as an incident involving early championship leader Dylan Pereira and Saudi Arabia’s Bandar Alesayi saw the safety-car deployed for five of the twelve laps.

Once action got back underway there was little chance for overtaking. The top six positions were completed by Tom Oliphant of Britain in fourth, Germany’s Wolfgang Triller in fifth and UAE-resident Bashar Mardini sixth.