Superb Second Win Of British GT Season For Al Harthy

Ahmad Al Harthy and Oman Air Motorbase team-mate Michael Caine raced to a richly deserved second victory of the Avon Tyres British GT Championship season at Zandvoort in The Netherlands on Saturday during a thrilling and unpredictable eighth round of the campaign.Supported by scores of guests from his home city of Muscat, Omani 32-year-old Ahmad not only celebrated another win but did so off the back of earlier claiming his first British GT pole position in a rain-hit session. The result has also provisionally hoisted the pairing into the top three of the driver standings, within a mere four points of the championship lead.“We’re absolutely over the moon to have taken our second win in British GT”, said the elated Porsche driver, “Being on pole for the first time was incredible, it started raining just as I went out in qualifying so we knew we only had a short time to get a good lap. I was delighted with the time I did.“The team did a fantastic job with the car, it was perfect in the race and ran faultlessly all the way through. The guys did a great job in the pit-stop too and Michael had a mega stint. We have a big group of people from Oman with us this weekend, plus guests from the local office linked to the Oman Ministry of Tourism, so it was even more special to win in front of them.”Starring on his debut appearance at Zandvoort, the 32-year-old began the day superbly with his maiden pole position. Needing to bank a strong lap time early due to the onset of rain, Ahmad secured the top spot on the grid with a quickest time of 1m42.988 seconds (150.55 km/h).Taking the opening stint for the first of the weekend’s two 60-minute encounters, Ahmad made an excellent getaway from the rolling start and pulled away at the front to open a two second cushion on the opening lap alone. Frustratingly, though, the Safety Car was deployed just a handful of laps into the race to erode the impressive lead held by the Porsche 997 GT3R.At the re-start on lap 12, almost half an hour into the allotted time, Ahmad led away before pitting at the conclusion of the lap to hand the Oman Air, Oman Ministry of Sports Affairs, Oman Ministry of Tourism, Nawras, National Bank of Oman and Muscat Eye Laser Center-liveried car over to Caine.Thanks to great work from the pit crew, the Briton was able to rejoin the race with an advantage of more than five seconds over his closest rival. Hampered by the significant ballast which the Oman Air Motorbase car has to carry, though, Caine’s task was made unbelievably difficult.Inside just eight laps his lead was slashed to mere fractions of a second but the reigning British GT Champion used all of his experience and astuteness to fend off the BMW Z4 of Dan Brown. Keeping the quicker car at bay with some excellent driving, Caine did momentarily lose the lead at the start of lap 28 but retook first place at the exit of the turn before winning on lap 31 by just 0.5 seconds.“Michael did an amazing job to keep those guys behind him for so long, he was under so much pressure and it showed how much the ballast in our car hurts us”, commented Ahmad, “At the start, I got away really well and had to push very hard straight away to try and build a gap – we knew it was our chance if we managed that. I couldn’t believe it when the Safety Car came out though!“We decided to do one extra lap after the Safety Car came in and it worked out really well, we had a great pit-stop and then Michael produced a champion’s performance. It’s been a fantastic day, thank you as always to the team and my incredible sponsors.”Round nine of the British GT Championship will take place later today, Sunday, 8th September, at 12.00 (local time). Caine will start the race for Oman Air Motorbase from a challenging 21st place on the grid after encountering difficulties during his qualifying run.Provisional 2013 Avon Tyres British GT Championship Standings (after Rd8):3rd Ahmad Al Harthy/Michael Caine, 95pts


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