UAE National Racing // UAE GTs // Yas Marina

It was the first outing of UAE National Racing in its own dedicated race at Yas Marina last weekend, and what an event it turned out to be.

Plenty of teams had pulled things together for the last race of the year before the break in proceedings during January and most of February.

As bizarre as it might sound considering Yas is a hulking monster of a full-on F1 circuit compared to the clubby feel of the Autodrome, but I found this weekend to be a pretty intimate affair.

I found myself standing on the pitwall during the UAE GT practice session when it had been red flagged due to Harris Irfan and Paul Denby’s Porsche throwing the contents of its rad onto the main straight and looking back onto the pits.

Sitting proudly nose-to-tail were the rest of the grid ranging from three Astons at the head of the pitlane, past the two TAM Vettes, the green-and-yellow monster Megane, a pair of KTM X-Bows, the Gulf Sport Ginettas and Maseratis. It then moved onto MSW’s yellow 997 and Raed Hassan’s Zytech Ginetta, the Khaleji Ferrari before finally ending on the NFS garage where the Viper, carbon-laden Evo X and the Moutran bros’ Seat were parked.

It’s fair to say, that this was an absolutely mega sight and shows just how far UAE GTs has come – lest we forget, we’re only half-way through the second season of the championship and the mix of cars is looking very good indeed.

The combo of some seriously heavy metal and a range of driving talents shows that there’s still plenty of legs in Motorsport in the region. It’s just a shame that the grandstands were their usual quiet affair during the course of the weekend. If you didn’t make it down to Yas, you missed out on some seriously nail-biting action in all the racing – even the Suzukis were dicing hard throughout their three races.

But back to the GTs. This was the first time that the North loop had been used for a National Race – last year’s support races used either the full GP or the Aussie V8 configuration and its rather challenging corkscrew. Whilst this layout isn’t perhaps the most interesting, it still proved to be quite a handful for the drivers.

It also proved to be a bit of a challenge for the organisers as the rolling start was aborted more than once, with one of those occasions the lights going off after the leading group had passed under the gantry, leaving drivers and teams unsure of what exactly was going on. However, the race finally got away cleanly and everyone emerged through the turn 1 intact.

The Maserati GranTurismos as driven by young Rob Cregan and less-young David Field were absolutely honking it down the back straight towards the West grandstand. Given enough space, these big Italians will crack 360kph and whilst they weren’t doing quite that speed at the weekend, they were certainly stretching their legs to the fullest.

Rob did a sterling job to put his Maserati on pole in GTC and had plenty of dices throughout the race before taking the chequered flag in 1st place.

Dave didn’t have such a good weekend as he found himself struggling for grip in the early stages and then got caught up with Khaled Al Mudhaf’s Ginetta halfway through the race, which knackered his rear wheel and put him out action.

The Ginettas were struggling for speed on the long straight with both Khaled and Joe Ghanem finding themselves bouncing off the rev limiter with plenty of track still to go. Nevertheless, Khaled and Jan had a storming result.

The boys were over the moon when they collected their trophy from the second step of the podium, but an error with the timing system which had knocked Humaid Al Masaood down the order was later rectified handing 2nd place to the HMR Aston and third to the G-Force Autoworx G50.

As you can see, Humaid was a touch put out at the end of the race. That feeling would soon be rectified though…

This result is a bit of a kicker for the Sayel Racing KTM as Saad and Jordan collected another podium.

The boys were enjoying throwing the X-Bow around the North circuit, though I suspect the tight-and-twisty Marina section of Yas that will feature in the next round will favour the light car more.

With the NFS Lotus 2-Elevens both out of action due to issues with their clutches, Athanasios Ladas and Michael Mallock in the other KTM X-Bow should be reasonably happy with their 5th in class finish despite running off the pace of the rest of the field in the second half of the race.

There were three Aston Martin V8 Vantages out on the track flying the flag for three different teams. One was Yas Marina’s own car, which was being driven by Tony Whitaker and Saeed Al Mehairi from the Yas Race School. There were a few smiles raised in the pitlane after the No. 41 car was given a drive-through penalty midway through for what was classified dangerous driving…

After finally sorting their gearbox woes to release 6th gear to fully make the most of the back straight, it was a shame that the TAM-supported Aston Martin driven by John Iossifidis and Martin Baerschmidt retired from the race due to an electrical glitch.

The stranded Aston caused a Code 60 to be called on the race, which instead of featuring the delightful pink flags being waved from the marshal posts was signified by Safety Car warnings being displayed on Yas’s electronic display screens. Despite being mentioned in the driver briefing, a number of the drivers failed to notice the Code 60 being called – the HMR Aston was given a drive-through penalty because of this, which is understandable given the speed Humaid was tanking along the start-finish straight under Code 60 conditions.

Nabil and Ramzi Moutran should be happy that the gremlins that had affected their Seat Supercopa have finally got ironed out as the car completed the arduous hour-long race. The Duel Racing car will race in next month’s Dubai 24hrs, so it was good to get some hard kilometres under the wheels.

It was great to see big Fred’s carbon-tastic Evo back on track. Although Fred and Rob Barff did a sterling job to bring the car home in the race, they were disqualified from the standings after they refuelled the car during the race.

It was a shame really, as listening to the turbocharged engine do its stuff down the straights was a bit of welcome relief after some of the seriously painful exhaust notes from the rest of the field.

It wasn’t to be Paul Denby and Harris Irfan’s weekend.

Both practice sessions saw the 996 Cup Car lose the contents of its radiator on the start-finish straight – something that was eventually fixed by fitted a radiator from a 997 Cup car.

All was going swimmingly until three-quarters of the way through the race when Denby had a slight altercation with the black KTM X-Bow that caused the 911 to retire and resulted in both drivers having to pay a visit to the Stewards office at the end of the race.

I’m sure Harris will reveal more in his driver’s blog when it lands in a day or so.

GTC was very healthy with 12 cars making it out for the weekend. GTB featured four cars and some of the closest racing we’ve seen in UAE GTs.

The pairing of Jon Simmonds and Phil Quaife were looking rather fetching in their new yellow MSW suits, and the new clothing certainly put the oomph into the boys to perform. The last race saw some close tussles between the 911 and TAM’s GTB Corvette, and Yas proved to bring some even closer battles.

In the final laps of the race, the 911 was nipping hard at the heels of the Corvette. The teams in the pits were playing TV director with the Yas trackside cameras on the screens trying to keep track of exactly what was happening on the far side of the track.

Unfortunately for TAM, a last minute manoeuvre by Fabian Giroix in the GTA Vette as he was charging hard to try and catch up with Buzz in the Zytech Ginetta – the Corvette lost a lot of time due to a puncture earlier in the race – allowed the MSW 911 to squeeze through. The MSW 911 took the chequered flag just 0.093 seconds ahead of the Vette.

Making a certain Jon Simmonds more than a touch happy…

So although the young pairing of Jiri Skula and Mohammed Al Mutawaa missed out on the top step of the podium, the boys should be more than happy with their second place.

It was great to see the Khaleji Ferrari F430 running at proper race pace.

Unfortunately a puncture saw the car pull into the pits and not rejoin the race.

The Megane Trophy as driven by Rafael Unzurrunzaga was sounding absolutely awesome out on track – if a little bit too loud for those standing on the pitwall.

The sound of that V6 being bounced back from the grandstands was something that remained with me for a long time on the slog back to Dubai.

Now onto the big three boys in GTA.

NFS Racing’s homegrown Dodge Viper was looking particularly menacing with its new flat floor and rather over-the-top rear diffuser.

We’ve watched this car with interest over the past few years as Julian and the team progressively improve the car round on round.

It certainly wasn’t lacking in pace either, qualifying just 0.294 secs behind the mad yellow Zytech Ginetta earlier in the day. All was looking to be going NFS’s way in the race too as the Viper was running 2 seconds ahead of TAM’s GTA Corvette after Karim Al-Azhari brought the car in for its the mandatory pit stop.

However, it wasn’t meant to be as Julian rolled the car into the pits a couple of laps later complaining of smelling fumes in the cockpit. Though it must have been a tough decision for the team, you always want to err on the side of safety.

That retirement left a two-horse race between Buzz in the Ginetta and Fabian in the Corvette.

It was nearly game over for the Ginetta after the pit stop. Though Raed quickly jumped out of the car leaving the seat free for Buzz, the Ginetta stalled as it moved away from the box. It took the combined might of the full MSW team and most of the pitlane to get the car bump started and on its way again.

But it wasn’t plain sailing for TAM as a few laps later, Fabian rolled into the pits with the right rear tyre in a really bad way. The boys quickly put on a fresh boot and sent him on his way.

Fabian then had an almighty charge ahead of him – Buzz was around 35seconds ahead on the track and there was a third of the race still to run. The next 15 laps saw Fabian take nearly 2 seconds a lap off the Ginetta’s time. However, despite a truly valiant attempt, Fabian ran out of time and brought the Corvette home 5.804secs behind the Ginetta.

Overall, it was a truly impressive effort by the driver pairing of Raed Hassan and Bassam Kronfli in the MSW Ginetta G50Z. Especially so considering the delay they suffered during the pit stops.

Buzz couldn’t quite believe he’d won the race as he pulled into parc ferme, and was all smiles on the top step of the podium.

Raed and Buzz celebrate their first and hard fought win..

It was a cracking race for all those involved – Especially MSW who became the triple threat at Yas. It’s just a shame that we’ve got to wait until early February for the next round. The UAE GT Championship will act as a support race to the Aussie V8s alongside the mad GP2 Asia boys on the weekend of Feb 11-12th.

There’s no doubt it will be an action-packed race as the Aussie V8s run the configuration of Yas Marina which uses the Laguna Seca-style corkscrew that drops you halfway down the main straight before tackling the tight and twisty Marina section.

And those of you who are interested in the UAE Touring Cars, Sports Cars and even the Suzuki Swift Cup… reports and galleries will follow shortly.

UAE National Racing // UAE GTs // Yas Marina

Tom Bird

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UAE National Racing // UAE GTs // Yas Marina

Tom Bird

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