Khaled Al Qubaisi and Team Abu Dhabi-Proton Racing finished fourth at the penultimate round of the FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC), the 6 Hours of Shanghai, in class LMGTE Am on Sunday.
The team now goes into the final round in Bahrain later this month third overall and still in with a chance to move up and finish the season in second place in class.
Al Qubaisi shared driving duties with David Heinemeier-Hansson of Denmark and Patrick Long of the US behind the wheel of the No88 Porsche 911 RSR.
Long kicked things off for the team and managed to avoid crashing into an LMP2 car following an incident just before the first corner involving car No45 that required deployment of the safety car. As a result, Long went back to sixth in class from third at the restart of the race which cost the team precious time.
However, the American then put pedal to metal and reclaimed his third position. He moved up to P2 in class before handing over the week to Al Qubaisi. The Emirati kept up the pressure on his opponents with some aggressive driving, swapping the P2 and P3 positions at regular intervals.
During the third stint, Hansson took to the wheel in P2 however, as he was nearing the end of his session he dropped down to P4 due to issues with the tyres. Al Qubaisi took the wheel in the final stint and brought the car home safely to take fourth in class and still third overall going into the final race of the season in Bahrain on November 19.
“The result could have been better,” said Al Qubaisi. “The incident, which was no fault of ours, cost us precious time. We did our best here in China. “In racing, these issues crop up. But now we are totally focused on the final race in Bahrain where we will push ourselves to the limit and try and move up to P2 in the final classification in class.”
The overall race was won by the No 1 Porsche 919 Hybrid crew of Timo Bernhard, Mark Webber and Brendon Hartley, who secured a second consecutive 2016 FIA World Endurance Manufacturer title for the German marque with one round remaining.
Porsche took a commanding victory in front of 55,000 spectators, leading for the vast majority of the race.
