hmad Al Harthy and the ARC Bratislava-NBO Racing Team were left ruing contact from a rival car during the early running of the Total 24 Hours of Spa on Saturday, 27th July, which led to a bitterly disappointing retirement from the raceless than three hours into the challenging contest.Relishing the prospect of his first ever twice round the clock encounter, which formed round four of the Blancpain Endurance Series, the Omani 31-year-old took the opening stint of the prestigious race and delivered an excellent performance at the wheel of his Porsche 997 GT3R.Beginning the 65th staging of the endurance classic from ninth in the GTR Class, Ahmad enjoyed a very competitive opening to the race and climbed the order well. Moving into the class top five ahead of a 30-minute Safety Car period, the NBO Racing Team then opted to call the Muscat racer into the pits for his first refueling pit-stop.Remaining on the same set of Pirelli tyres, when Ahmad rejoined he continued to make gains and was up into third in GTR ahead of the second scheduled stop at the 90-minute mark where regular team-mate Miro Konpka took over driving duties.The Slovakian ran comfortably in the top five before handing over the car to German racer Marco Schelp, the latter then falling victim to a major impact with the barriers early in his first stint after heavy contact from a Mercedes SLS. Resulting in huge damage to the NBO Racing Team Porsche, the team was instantly forced to retire through no fault of its own.We all knew the race would be a huge challenge, there is always so much which can happen in our sport but especially in a 24 Hour race, said a disappointed Ahmad, Personally, I was there to learn and be part of this huge event and I was very happy with my one and a half hour stint. I learnt a lot from that and it was great to be involved in the Spa 24 Hours for the first time.We started the race really well, during the opening laps I went forward and climbed the order nicely and then the team made a perfect call to pit for fuel under the Safety Car. After that I took P3 in class and at the next stop Miro took over the car and was holding fifth place well.Ahmad continued: For the third stint Marco came in for his first run and it was all fine until a couple of SLS cars, which were battling, tried to pass. Marco went to the right, keeping clear, but then one of them just hit him straight in the side and our car fish-tailed off into the barrier. There was broken suspension, very heavy damage to the car, but thankfully Marco was OK which was the main thing.

Round five of the 2013 Blancpain Endurance Series, the Nurburgring 1,000 km, will take place over the weekend 21st/22nd September at the German venue. Before then, Ahmad will return to action with the Oman Air Racing Team in the Avon Tyres British GT Championship for round seven of its season on 10th/11th August at Brands Hatch Grand Prix Circuit in Kent.We were hoping for more this weekend, obviously, and we knew we could perform well after the first stint went so smoothly, added the National Bank of Oman, Nawras, Oman Ministry of Tourism and Oman Ministry of Sports Affairs-supported racer, Everyone at the NBO Racing Team did a fantastic job, well just look ahead now to the final round and try and battle for the podium there.