BAHRAIN: Bahrain International Circuit provided a challenging final race of the FIA World Endurance Championship season for Ahmad al Harthy, Maxime Martin and Valentino Rossi on Saturday, 2nd November, with the trio ending the Bapco Energies 8 Hours of Bahrain 14th in LMGT3.
While round eight didn’t deliver the result the Team WRT drivers had hoped or worked for, largely due to tyre degradation issues, they still managed to close out a very strong season in the World Championship sixth in the LMGT3 driver standings – the inaugural year for the class.
Lining-up 13th on the class grid for the eight-hour season finale, OQ, Oman Ministry of Culture, Sports and Youth, Omantel, Experience Oman and BMW Oman supported racer Al Harthy made a customary good start and gained two places. Leapfrogging the sister Team WRT BMW M4 in the process, he ended the opening lap in 11th position.
Moving into the top 10 later in the first hour, as the first round of pit-stops started to be served, the Omani stayed out on track initially and climbed further into the top six as a result with just under 55 minutes elapsed.
Following his first visit to the pits soon after, Al Harthy emerged in 10th position and aimed to make progress but was instead shuffled back to 12th in the second hour. He then pitted again ahead of the end of hour two.
Rossi climbed behind the wheel of the No.46 BMW M4 for his first race miles and when the order settled he was 12th. Gaining a couple of places to reappear in the top 10, Rossi pitted around 45 minutes into hour three and rejoined in 12th once again.
Al Harthy returned to the driving seat for his final stint before the end of hour four, running in 14th and staying in that position up to the next pit visit. Martin then took over driving duties, joining the race in 15th place. With two and a half hours to go he was up into 13th position, before Rossi took over for his final running of the race.
Thereafter, the final couple of hours passed in similar fashion with Martin doing his utmost to gain some ground but being ultimately frustrated. Running in 13th with less than half an hour to go, Martin had to make one final pit visit and so eventually took the chequered flag at the end of eight hours in 14th place in LMGT3.
Ahmad al Harthy:
“Bahrain has been one part of a very busy and competitive World Championship. It’s been a huge honour to represent Oman, and achieve some amazing results, in FIA WEC this year — it really is one of the toughest championships in endurance racing. We wanted to have ended the WEC season stronger, but it just wasn’t our weekend. The tyre degradation meant we struggled a lot compared to our other competitors.
“Once again, I want to thank everyone who has worked with us this season in WEC, my team-mates Maxime and Vale, and everyone behind the scenes at BMW and WRT for a very, very hard-fought season in World Endurance. Of course, I am also so grateful for all of the amazing support we have had this year from our incredible partners and everyone back in Oman.”
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