UAE GT Round 5. Yas Marina Circuit. Race Report

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Lots of hype in the air leading up to Round 5 of the UAE GT Championship, with the series making its first appearance at the Yas Marina Circuit – the first time for everyone to race each other at the new, uber glamorous facility. We’ve heard talk of “Yas, Yas, Yas” all year leading up to this event so it was a pretty plain assumption (in part due to the fog of silence that suddenly descended over the internets) that everyone was busy scrambling around during the post-round 4 downtime to get ready for Yas, like a bunch of high school girls preparing for the senior prom, in order to bring their A-game to Abu Dhabi and put a pretty foot forward.

A little merciless beating at the online bushes revealed some interesting possible developments coming to the grid for this round, namely the appearance of a few very capable star drivers in some of the cars. Would this new blood have consequences in terms of the finishing order? As the C&P crew found almost as soon as we pulled up to the sunlit Yas circuit on raceday, striking this author as very much a James Bond fantasy island extravaganza with zoomy cars to boot, the answer to that initial speculation became quite clear as the cars roared by. In short – oh hell yes, we had us a heckuva race unfolding before us. Things were looking very atypically tight out on the sticky tarmac and some very interesting things were shaking their way through the running order.

Muehlner Motorsports, back again with their Porsche GT3 Cup S after an impressive run in round 4 with Andrew Donaldson at the wheel, arrived at Yas with a secret human weapon in tow. The name Rene Rast hasn’t been heard in the UAE before but it’s all to familiar in Germany, where the young Rast has accumulated an impressive stack of Karting and Porsche Supercup championship titles under his belt (to name a few of his accomplishments).

Obviously this guy can drive a Porsche then, but after his performance at Yas we’ll be tempted to put that statement in italics. From qualifying onwards Rast was far and away the quickest on the grid, with perennial UAE GT numero uno Karim Al Azhari unable to get the TAM Auto Engineering/House of Portier Corvette Z06R close to matching Rast’s pace. Come race time a deep field of electrical intensity covered the grid as the cars roared off from the starting flag, with everybody absolutely riveted on the 1-2 spectacle, wondering how Karim would respond to this new pressure. Rast didn’t hang around long to duel though, instead gradually and clinically pulling away, establishing a safe gap between himself and the snarling TAM/House of Portier Corvette, and maintaining a very comfortable margin over his chief rival by the time the checkered flag fell.

We’ll not be forgetting Rene Rast’s name anytime soon then – in addition to a ‘one fast guy’ suffix he’ll also be known from now on as ‘the first person to ever beat Karim Al Azhari in a straight fight’, let alone in such a convincing manner. Hats off to a brilliant run!

We doubt that the appearance of any fancy German names on the starting roster caused Karim to lose much sleep at all. He’s already leading the overall UAE GT championship by an almost unassailable margin and none of his championship competitors seem to have found an answer to his pace yet this season.

Whenever pushed hard Karim’s always been able to dig deeper and produce ample amounts of extra pace to stay clear of his adversaries to take the win, be it the DXB Racing Viper of Julian Griffin, the Khaleji Motorsports Porsche of Tarek Elgammal and Cabell Fisher or by a new upstart such as in round 4 when Andrew Donladson putting on a convincing charge in the Muehlner Porsche GT3 Cup S.

Inevitably though, everything that begins must have an end and so it was with Karim’s unbeaten streak this round, as he suddenly found himself staring at the sight of a pair of uncatchable Porsche taillights receding into the distance. A drive through penalty near the end of the race might have been the nail in the coffin for any hope of a late charge for the win but in this case the race was effectively decided long before that point, with Rene Rast having worked hard to build himself a comfortable lead over Karim early on and simply disappearing into the distance in a very Germanic fashion thereafter.

We still doubt that Karim’s going to lose much sleep though, with the UAE GT Championship itself being very close to the brim of his trophy bag at this point due to his previous efforts.

The former air of invincibility is nonetheless permanently gone then, but time will tell whether any of the local teams will be able to follow Muehlner’s example of how to put together the required combination of car and driver necessary to beat Karim again now that it’s been done. That’s a whole other article though!

Another new name on the grid and another fine performance as Sean Edwards flew in from the UK to take up Khalid Al Qubaisi’s seat in one of the Abu Dhabi Falcons Porsche GT3 Cup cars, prepared by Alex Renner Motorsports. Although a good few ticks behind the top two cars on the day, Sean put in a greet effort to grab the third podium spot ahead of Julian Griffin’s animalistic DXB Racing Viper driving a car which, as good as all Porsches inherently are, has never formerly been anywhere even close to the Viper’s contrails when the snake’s running on form. Interestingly the lap times show that the Viper’s ultimate lap times during the race were often quicker than the Porsche could muster, meaning that we’re looking at the result of a rather superb drive on Sean Edwards’ part here to clinch that third place spot.

A fine performance on track by all accounts then as well as off the track, where it’s been widely reported that Sean was more than kind when it came to helping out his fellow ARM Motorsports teammates with tips and setup advice. Not sure if we’ll be seeing more of Sean again this year – if I were Khaled Al Qubaisi I’d want my Porsche seat back soon please, thankyou very much!

At the risk of being biased we’ll just come out and say that we love this car. Not only does it radiate an amazing presence with its looks and sheer speed, it’s also been very interesting watching the DXB Racing Viper’s gradual and meticulous development from a road car to a full on race machine over the last couple of seasons.

A fair amount of the usual racecar-in-development niggles have popped up here and there in the Viper’s past but these have more often than not tempered by sufficient pace to raise the hair on many necks when everything on the Snake was working as it should and Julian was on his game (is he ever NOT on his game?). At this point the car’s performance makes it seem safe to say that the reliability part of the equation has been well and properly sorted; we’re getting quite used to seeing the Viper run form flag to flag with no problems at all these days.

Doctor Frankenstein Julian Griffin still feels there’s much more pace lurking inside his creation though, particularly in the suspension department. Unfortunately for the Yas round the Viper’s usual Motons had to be swapped back to the still not-so-shabby street car setup (if one can call the VIper ACR’s adjustable dampers a street car setup that is). The Viper seemed to run just with its new/old tendons in place but at this level of the game, when fractions turn into tenths and tenths turn into gaps, it just wasn’t enough for the Viper to perform at its very best on the day. Although it was hardly slow, having posted the third fastest ultimate lap times of the day during the race, it seems that the tiny chink in the reptile’s scales was enough for the well driven Porsche of Sean Edwards to sneak past and snatch that third place trophy. As much as a bummer as it must be for Julian and company, the bright side is that the rest of us just have more in the way of Viper goodness and surprises to look forward to!

Interesting matchup between the two remaining Abu Dhabi Falcon Racing cars of Saif Al Assam and Ibrahim Salloum in the Alex Renner prepared GT3 Cup cars as they get to know their new playmate Raed Hassan in his V8 powered Ginetta G50Z. After a long and steady race it was Saif Al Assam leading the trio to the checkered flag, with Ibrahim managing to edge out Raed Hassan’s Ginetta.

Although not quite managing to keep pace with Julian Griffin’s DXB Racing Viper, the two Abu Dhabi drivers nonetheless put on a flawless drive once again in front of their home crowd, dealing very ably with the different driving techniques and car setups required to get quickly around the Yas circuit, which is quite a different ball of wax than the more open, slippery Dubai Autodrome which the two drivers originally cut their Porsche racing teeth on. Although Saif came out on top of the Abu Dhabi based heap, Ibrahim received some nice entertainment in the form of hunting down Raed Hassan’s Ginetta, biding his time and eventually pulling off the pass later on in the race after Raed made a small booboo in the closing stages.

Sure we love all of the cars on the GT grid but it’s hard not to be particularly captivated by the Ginetta G50Z, which runs a bespoke V8 giving it 400 horsepower, an extra good bunch of pony power over the “regular” Ginettas that race in the GTB class. A bit less power than the Porsches then but with an excellent chassis and light weight the Ginetta G50Z is still a very compelling package. Even more so with Raed Hassan at the wheel though, a hungry and talented driver who will just not give up.

Swapping from a raft of huge horsepower AWD saloon cars into a compact RWD right hand drive car must be quite traumatic in and of itself but even though it’s only been two races so far Raed seems to be doing just fine keeping paces with the Porsche Club. The raw lap times already seem sufficient to indicate that this car and driver package could be quite potent and indeed Raed got off to a good enough start at Yas, but a spin later on in the race saw the well poised Ibrahim Salloum-driven Porsche slip past this time. Having known Raed and the GulfSport crew for quite some time though, we’ll keep watching as this duo continues to develop since the data suggests (scientifically speaking and whatnot) that both car and driver have lots left to give.

Adding a pleasant dash of spice to the lineup, Rafael Unzurrunzaga’s mega menacing Renault Megane Trophy made another appearance at Yas. Though he got off to a promising start it seems that the race gods had something they wanted to chat about, resulting in the child-scaring Renault endurance monster retiring early for as-yet unknown reasons.

Likewise, a blown engine saw Tarek Elgammal and Cabell Fisher’s Khaleji Motorsports Porsche GT3 Cup S relegated to pit prop duty for this round. Quite frustrating really as the Yas circuit seemed to be rather kind to Porsches overall. Tarek at least had a backup plan in the form of a V8 Supercars seat on the same day, which he used to pretty good effect.

Also conspicuous by its absence on the grid was the Axis Racing Viper, which unfortunately didn’t make the cut for want of a properly installed differential in spite of the team pulling out all the stops to source one from some ungodly corner of the worked in time for the Yas event. The mystery diff did arrive on time technically, but just not in an actually-in-the-car manner. Harsh luck then, but at least the race gods distributed their wrath around in a fairly even way that should enable everyone to be back for round 6!

When your car’s leading a championship against very strong opposition just about the last tactical move you want to make is to invite in a new driver. To Paul Denby’s relief though, his teammate for the day HH Sheikh Hasher Al Maktoum is not just any ‘new driver’ – His Highness happens to be Royally talented behind the wheel as well.

Being talented is one thing of course, but being Fast speaks louder. In this case Sheikh Hasher’s definition of Fast was enough to qualify the Khaleji Porsche GT3 RS on pole in the GTB class, after which the two Khaleji drivers happily went to work on the rest of the grid during the race proper. In spite of some intense heat coming from Harris Irfan early on in the race Sheikh Hasher and Paul Denby eventually pulled off a convincing GTB win as their consistently quick pace allowed them to stay clear of the almighty scrap between their rivals all gunning for the second place spot right behind them.

Something epic for the DXB Racing crew to celebrate here as the team’s custom built, totally in-house developed Mitsubishi Evolution X race car grabbed its first podium.

Even though they’ve been slowly and methodically sorting out the bugs with the Evo X over the past few races we’re guessing that the team themselves would have bet on Jon Simmonds in their Astom Martin Vantage GT4 to be the one to bring home some silverware from Yas.

Although the Aston did indeed prove to be the quicker car during the race, engaging in an epic, multilap three way duel with Robert Cregan’s Ginetta as the two mercilessly chased after Harris Irfan’s Porsche, a rude shunt on lap 10 or so saw the Aston retire from the finishing order.

Frederic Galliard in the team’s Evo X was holding steady though and was well prepared to swoop in and make the most of things with the Ginetta and Aston out of the picture, seizing the moment when Raed Hassan’s spin later on in the game allowed him make his way past Harris Irfan’s Porsche, which had to take momentary evasive manouevres. After the stunning upset move Frederic managed to keep pushing the Evo X hard enough to stay in front of the charging Irfan to snatch the second place spot on the podium. A thrilling race then – a strong performance and some quick reactions sealing First Blood for the Evo, which deserves a writeup of its own here on C&P someday.

I’ve never seem Harris so happy with a third place finish in his life. By all rights he could have been upset about not getting that second place spot he was runningin for much of the race or even the first place spot he was oh-so-close to. As it turned out is seems that fate decided to rob him a notch or two on the podium in return for perhaps one of the best on circuit race battles of his life.

From the drop of the flag he found himself running right behind the Khaleji Porsche in second, just a tick away from an intense battle between Jon Simmond’s DXB Racing Aston Martin GT4 and Robert Cregan and Saal Salman’s Ginetta for third. Harris held on fast while the Ginetta battled with the Aston, the two cars eventually colliding with one another and the Aston retiring from the race.

Harris’s race wasn’t over though as he came under pressure form the DXB Racing EvoX later on, with a pin by Raed Hassan in front of the two cars crating enough of an advantage for the Evo to squeeze past Harris and stay there until the flag in spite of a valliant effort to hunt it the Carbon Fibre laden DXB Racing monster down.

This whole series of events between the top 4-odd GTB cars may indeed have been the battle of the season in the GT category so far, and Harris seems to have won judging by the grin on his mug – a kind of winning which sometimes one’s finishing position can’t express. A truly heart stopping, action packed race for Harris then, who was right in the thick of things the entire time.

Wow! Somehow the talented Kuwaiti newbie in the “other” Ginetta ended up within spitting distance of a podium spot! Not something to sneeze at in this company that’s for sure, we’re guessing that it’s a case of cool headedness paying dividends.

And so it was that Khaled Al Mudhaf rose from the ashes and earned himself a very respectable fourth spot in GTB, driving his race and making the most of the carnage to rise near the top. A great finish on a new track for a new driver, now let’s see whether this sweet taste of success spurs Khaled’s hunger on to more and greater things!

It’s hard seeing a couple of guys this quick so low in the finishing order but that’s how the cookie crumbles sometimes. Lightning fast in qualifying, the dynamic duo in the GulfSport Ginetta proved very quick during the race as well, immediately launching into an intense duel with Jon Simmonds in the DXB Racing Aston for P3 and the right to ride the bumper of Harris Irfan’s beautiful blue Porsche for P2 in GTB.

Some breathtaking passing moves ensued between the Ginetta and the DXB Racing Aston as they traded places on various parts of the track lap after lap as each car seemed to have unique advantages and disadvantages on particular parts of the Yas circuit. Eventually though the Ginetta make contact with the Aston from behind going into one of the faster bends, causing both cars spin out and the DXB Racing Aston to retire. Although the Ginetta continued on, their still-savage post-recovery pace wasn’t enough to reclaim their former position, with a drive through penalty being the final nail in the coffin to their efforts.

Honorable mentions to Humaid Al Masood and Eric Charles in the AUH Racing Aston, who got off to a good start in the race only to gradually fade away from the picture and retire with some unknown issues. A less than ideal run as well as for perennial privateer Steve Adams who put in a great effort to adjust his car’s ever-evolving setup to the Yas circuit, unfortunately not exhibiting the pace he wanted relative to his rivals this time around before ultimately deciding to retire the car early.

We hope to see both back in the thick of GTB next round, which is proving to be quite an interesting class to watch!

If there’s anything we’ll remember from Yas it’ll be some insanely close GT battles and some huge surprises in the GTA finishing order against the background of a rather glorious, almost surreal, setting.

The round at Yas was probably the most entertaining racing we’ve seen from the GT boys so far – the cars themselves running uncharacteristically close to one another the whole way through the race, generating an intensity level easily on par with anything we’ve seen so far from the much more crowded UAE Touring Car grid.

Let’s hope that the pressure keeps up as we return to the Autodrome for round 6 – and you can bet your socks C&P will be all over it!

No Comments

cobalt blue
February 22, 2010 12:47 pm

Great report and pics, boys. I really enjoyed it – allowed me to relive it all over again. Your kind words are much appreciated.

Harris
Tom Bird
February 22, 2010 5:15 am

Nice work boys – makes me really annoyed that I was stuck in the office and couldn’t make the race. Roll on National Race Day at the ‘drome on March 19th (not forgetting Touring Cars this weekend of course!)

UAE GT Round 5. Yas Marina Circuit. Race Report

crankandpiston

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