Ahmad Al Harthy made a fantastic start to his first ever race weekend at the hugely challenging Dijon-Prenois circuit yesterday, Saturday, 14th May, by qualifying seventh fastest for both of today's Porsche Carrera Cup France races.
The 29-year-old, more regularly a front-runner in the Porsche Carrera Cup GB Championship, is making only his second ever race appearance in mainland Europe this weekend as a way of gaining more race experience during a five-week break for the UK series. In addition, the event is a big showcase for his prestigious portfolio of sponsors - namely Oman Air, Nawras, National Bank of Oman, Brand Oman, Oman Ministry of Sports Affairs and the Oman Ministry of Tourism.
Having delivered a strong showing in testing on Friday, 13th May, Ahmad headed into qualifying this afternoon confident of a good run and he delivered well with a time of 1m20.715 seconds in the first session - placing him just 0.6 seconds away from the front-row of the grid. Improving his pace in session two, the Oman Air Racing Team driver lapped in 1m20.464 seconds to get within half a second of the top two.
Getting quicker with every outing, Ahmad has high hopes of a consistently strong showing tomorrow - both to secure two good race finishes and also represent his country well on the European stage. "I'm very satisfied with our performance today, taking seventh on the grid for both races is the best I think we could have done so I'm happy with that", he said,
"Dijon is a very challenging circuit, we had a strong plan through practice and qualifying which we worked to and it paid off well.
"To have never been to the circuit before, yet be within half a second of the front row, is definitely a very respectable performance. With more knowledge of the track during tomorrow's races, I'm sure we can improve further still. It's great to be here representing Oman - hopefully we can celebrate two good results tomorrow."
Race one of the weekend will get underway at Dijon-Prenois at around 10.35 (local time), Sunday, 15th May, with race two following at approximately 15.25.
The opening encounter will begin with a rolling start - Ahmad's first ever at the wheel of his Porsche - while the second race will get underway from a regular standing start.
