Oman Racing Team driver Ahmad Al Harthy finished a disappointing 15th in class in Round 2 of the Blancpain Endurance Series at Silverstone last night, the Omani unable to revive his campaign after a disappointing opener at Monza last month.
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During the morning’s qualifying session, Al Harthy, who also races in the Porsche GT3 Middle Each Challenge for Al Nabooda Racing, showed every sign that he would turnaround the team’s fortunes by claiming second spot on the grid in the Pro-Am Cup category, following a faultless run in practice and prequalifying on Saturday.
The Oman Racing driver was confident he and team-mates Jonny Adam and Daniel Lloyd could make progress at Silverstone and earnestly kick-start their 2015 campaign in the series.
Al Harthy said ahead of the race: “Everything went well in practice and pre-qualifying, we’ve been trying to find the best set-up to make things as comfortable as possible for all three drivers and we definitely learnt a lot.
“It looks like things are going to be very tight between everyone. As always, though, we will have a strong race car so we need to maximise qualifying – that’s very important.”
During the 90 minute pre-qualifying and qualifying session, Al Harthy – behind the wheel of a Aston Martin V12 Vantage – was very happy with his performance.
The team posted a quickest time in pre-qualifying of two minutes 02.263 seconds, the lap within just 0.6 seconds of the outright top. And then despite securing a strong position in qualifying, Oman Racing fell back rapidly over the 83 laps that the team completed in the three-hour race.
In the race itself, Oman Racing Team posted a fastest time of two minutes 07.523, far below the two minutes 02.043 set in qualifying earlier in the day.
