Dubai: National raceday 3 at Dubai Autodrome

Dubai Nov 5th– Dubai Autodrome’s ‘Festival of Motorsport’ included racing on the full International circuit of 4.29km  it was a rare occasion seeing all classes of racing from Dubai’s finest racing teams, in Sportbikes, Sportscars, Touring Cars and last but not least, Dubai’s home grown version of GT racing.

UAE GT Championship

With most teams favouring locally based talent, some teams do import the occasional foreign ‘A’ listers to support and develop the teams and cars. Diego Alessi popped up to race alongside Karim Al Azhari, Alessi is better known for racing in Italian Touring cars, Daytona 24hrs and various FIA GT races. Rob Barff , eg Le Mans LMP1 and expert driver trainer from UK,  joined forces again with Team NFS and took a GTC class win in the Lotus Evora GT4 and second overall.

In turn one of lap one Robert Cregan had a double scuffle and was hit from both sides damaging the rear diff, however as a single driver he had time to push on through the pack up to second place in class, but three laps before the finish the rear diff finally gave up and offered him a DNF in the Maserati GT.

Mechanical gremlins attacked a few more of the top cars this weekend, the GTA class NFS Viper driven by Julien Griffin had brake failure on lap ten, not before he put in a spanking performance taking the race lead and proved a lap time of 1:43.50.  Early on one of the most impressive attacks came from the back, the GTA class Ginetta G50z driven by Raed Hassan and Bassm Kronfli was outstanding and definitely gave the top teams a run for their money including the untouchable HoP Corvette when Basaam pulled a time of 1:42.78 straight out of the box, against Karim Al Azharis 1:42.50 however technical issues on the throttle caused the car to return to the pits on numerous occasions and eventually come home three laps adrift over the course of the hour race.  Due to the two GTA cars dropping out of their class, the surprise class third was gifted to the Ferrari 430 Challenge languishing at the rear for most of the race and two laps down, still managed a welcomed podium position for messrs Fisher and Sinders. Jon Simmonds and Tarek Elgammal in the MSW Porsche had to also withdraw due to gearbox problems.

A welcomed win for local Emirati driver Mohammed Al Mutawaa, only  seventeen years old, took his first GTB class win in the brute House of Portier Corvette.  GT Results here

UAE Sportscar Championship

Team Abu Dhabi’s Emirati driver Jassim Al Shamsi won for the first time ever at Dubai Autodrome when he powered to victory in both races. On both occasions Al Shamsi managed to fend off a concerted challenge from reigning champion and the team coach Jordan Grogor in the AUH Motorsport Radical who started from the back of the unusually small seven car grid in race one and on the front row in the second race.

Al Shamsi said, “It was good to win for the first time at Dubai Autodrome. It wasn’t easy because Jordan chased me to the end and he is a good driver. I had a couple of moments in the bowl but survived to win twice today. Very happy after a good day at the Autodrome.” UAE Sportcars Race results here

UAE Touring cars

In race 1 it was a Seat fest as Khalid Bin Hadher in his Seat Supercopa  battled off the attentions of MSW Racing’s rookie driver Andre Ramdhanny (Seat Supercopa) and Nader Zuhour (Seat Cup) to take two commanding outright wins. Ramdhanny had fuel pump problems throughout the day, and still managed a third place in race one, while  Zuhour challenged strongly in both races but had to settle for second place overall in both races.

Bin Hadher said, “It is good to win especially after Andre and Nader pushed me hard in the early stages of both races. It’s a shame they had problems.”

A2B Garage Honda Civic Type R driver Spencer Vanderpal took two impressive third places overall, and two wins in his Class 2. In race one he made his way from the back of the grid to snatch victory from reigning champion UmairKhan in the Lap57 Honda. Khan was runner-up in both races.

An unfortunate accident on lap 7 ended an epic battle between Zlatko Mulebegovic ( Integra DC2) and guest driver for Duel Racing Sheik Salman bin Rashid Al Khalif from Bahrain in the Clio Cup, when both cars collided ending the race for both cars in race 1 and DNS in race 2.

Essa Bin Hadher (Integra DC5) took  third in race one while Jason O’Keefe, in the A2B Garage Honda Civic Type R, was third in the second race.

Vanderpal said afterwards, “It was really tight at the start and I was happy to get away from the Renaults and manage to catch Umair. In the first race starting from the back I got a really good start and really great to win twice today at the Festival.”  UAE Touring Cars race results here

Sportbikes 1000 Class

Saudi ace Abdulaziz Binladin is proving to be unbeatable on his BMW S1000RR and again did the business by winning both 1000 class races unchallenged. In race two Daimen VanBlerk took his first podium with a second place on his DFS Ducati 1198 after Hennie Sauerman lowsided in the bowl on the last lap, leaving Tony Jordan nowhere to go on his R1 but right into the sideways Kawasaki, fortunately both riders were unharmed. Unfortunately due to the race being red flagged at that point both bikes (not under there own power ) were declared as DNF.  

600 Class

In the 600 class Pascal Grosjean who took the double in the 600 Class on his Yamaha R6.  Alan Boyter of Yas Motorcycle team took a third in race one and a last place result race two after clipping Jason Burnside in an enthusiastic joust for second place. 

Jason finished third with Abdulrahman Al Shamsi on his R6 picking up the second in the mayhem. UAE Sportbikes round 3 Nov 5th 2010

More pics, Team reports and Driver blogs coming soon…