Evo Middle East’s Editor-in-Chief would have to abandon ship shortly before qualifying got under way, but aside from causing confusion amongst the photographers (“is he in the #9 or the #88?”), the Chief found the spare tub very much to his liking. After galloping into the distance in race one and taking the chequered flag with almost a minute in hand, Bassam would have to work slightly harder to make it two-for-two in the second race, having been caught out by Abdul Rahmam Al-Thani’s #1 SR8 at the start into turn one. A tussle here and dive there, and the race one winner was soon back at the front and driving for trophy number two.
The #1 machine would run into further problems in the second encounter during the compulsory pitstops. Eager to set off once again in pursuit of the leader, Al-Thani lost valuable seconds by stalling on his way out of the pitbox, the resultant push start by AUH Motorsport team mechanics dropping him nearly 15 seconds behind the front-running SR3 car of Mohammed Jawa, now in third.
Keen to make up for mechanical gremlins that dropped him out of podium contention in the opening bout, Jawa put the hammer down to try and keep the higher-spec #1 machine behind him. A valiant effort, but Al-Thani would eventually get by almost in sight of the chequered flag. Fourth still marked a good effort for Jawa.
Two lonely races netted British duo Richard Sykes and Charlie Kemp two-second place finishes in the #21 SR8 machine. Few were more jubilant than Tarek Elgammal and Hassan Dargahi in the #2 SR3 entry though, who comprehensively threw down the gauntlet by taking fourth behind the SR8 trio in the opening gambit and fifth in the second to establish themselves on top of the SR3 pile.
