EXPANSION
With the UAE GT Championship starting the following year, GulfSport refocused its core business on selling and supporting cars from two famous niche British manufacturers, the Caterham Seven and Ginetta G50. They have since sold every model of Caterham to customers in the GCC. In August 2010 Martin was invited to meet with the Directors of Maserati Corse in Oschersleben, which resulted in GulfSport being appointed as Technical Partner and Advisor to Maserati for the development of their Trofeo racing program in the UAE. They were also invited to support and run two factory cars for Maserati in the UAE GT Championship.
With the deepening financial recession killing off the expensive UAE GT Championship within just two seasons, GulfSport took a strategic decision to invest in the development of a single seater championship that could provide the necessary training and experience required by ambitious young drivers looking to pursue a professional racing career. This resulted in the 2010 announcement of the Formula Gulf 1000 Championship, now in its third season.
The FG1000 chassis is built by the same constructor that built and ran championship winning cars for Ayrton Senna when he started racing in Europe – Ralph Firman. As if to endorse GulfSport’s selection of a modern space-frame chassis, Dr. Jonathan Palmer selected this chassis for his BRDC Formula 4 Championship in the UK. The engine is one of the most successful motorcyle engines ever built – Suzuki’s four cylinder GSX-R1000.
This modest junior series has now developed a reputation as a ‘driver’s academy’ because of the intense focus on driver coaching that is part and parcel of the package. Emirati, Lebanese and Malaysian graduates have since moved on to compete successfully in UK Formula Renault, BRDC Formula 4, the Malaysian Super Series and the Middle East Rally Championship with Citroen Racing.
Little did Martin and Barry know back in the summer of 2002 that their vision of a small family business would evolve to generate US $15million of sales revenues and become the region’s most trusted motorsport business.
In the process they have imported more than 50 British-built sportscars, trained at least as many racing drivers, and have become the region’s largest retailer of kart, race and rally safety equipment. But crucially, their business has supported six families for the last eight years and has the lowest staff turnover of any motorsport business in the Middle East. Not a bad start.
– Our thanks to GulfSport Racing
