Avon Tyres British GT Championship driver Ahmad Al Harthy is relishing the prospect of mounting a consistent front-running challenge during round five of the season at Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium later today, Saturday, 11th July, after securing sixth on the grid for the weekend’s two-hour race.
Despite the true competitiveness of the No.2 Aston Martin V12 Vantage GT3 he shares with British racer Daniel Lloyd clearly hampered around the 4.3-mile track by the ‘Balance of Performance’ ballast the pairing has to carry, the team-mates still produced an impressive showing in qualifying.
Making a typically consistent and purposeful start to the weekend during free practice on Friday, 10th July, the Oman Racing Team duo ended the opening session eighth fastest before posting the 12th quickest time in session two.
With the grid for round five to be determined by the combined best lap times of each team-mate, Ahmad and Lloyd both had to produce the goods and they did so to secure a third row start for the eagerly-awaited Spa contest.
Lloyd took the opening 15-minute qualifying session and delivered a best time of 2m22.781 seconds to end his run 10th fastest. Importantly, he was also the quickest of the ‘Silver Cup’ drivers – the class featuring a boosted entry this weekend at Spa.
Ahmad then got strapped into the Oman Air, Oman Ministry of Sports Affairs, Ooredoo, National Bank of Oman and Al Hashar Group-liveried Aston for session two and lapped fourth quickest with a best of 2m24.713 seconds placing him little more than 0.1 seconds shy of the top two.
“Dan did a really good job in his session to deliver the time he did, the extra weight we have to carry is really hurting us around Spa so it was great to be quickest of the Silver Cup drivers too”, reflected the Aston Martin Middle East and North Africa ambassador, “The track was very hot for qualifying but everything worked well and we’re confident of a strong run in the race if all goes to plan.
“I really did have much stronger pace than I was able to show during my qualifying run, with such a big grid and lots of GT4 cars all of my fastest laps were compromised as I had to think about traffic the whole time. So, P6 overall after that is a very respectable position for us and we know we have a great car underneath us for the race.”
Round five of the Avon Tyres British GT Championship is scheduled to start at 12.15 (local time) today with live timing available online HERE
2015 Avon Tyres British GT Championship GT3 Driver Standings: 5th Ahmad Al Harthy/Daniel Lloyd, 46pts
2015 Avon Tyres British GT Championship GT3 Silver Cup Standings: 1st Ahmad Al Harthy/Daniel Lloyd, 59pts
2015 Avon Tyres British GT Championship GT3 Team Standings: 1st Oman Racing Team, 129.5pts
