MEDIA INFORMATION
PORSCHE MOBIL 1 SUPER CUP
Round 7 – Spa, August 24-26, 2018
For immediate release
Saturday, August 25th, 2018
OMAN’S AL-ZUBAIR IMPRESSES TO QUALIFY IN 12TH PLACE
FOR PORSCHE MOBIL 1 SUPER CUP RACE AT SPA CIRCUIT
· Khalid Al-Wahaibi looks to race fight back after qualifying in 25th
· Thomas Preining claims pole position from rookie Larry ten Voorde
SPA (BELGIUM): Oman’s Al-Faisal Al-Zubair delivered an impressive display to qualify in 12th place for the seventh round of the Porsche Mobil 1 Super Cup at Belgium’s legendary Spa-Francorchamps circuit on Saturday.
While the talented Omani recorded a best lap of 2min 23.137sec in a tight qualifying session, Lechner Racing Team Middle East team-mate Khalid Al-Wahaibi registered a best time of 2min 24.866sec and that put the rookie 25th on the grid for Sunday’s race.
Hungarian race winner Thomas Preining continued his winning ways to claim pole position for the Belgian race with a best lap of 2min 21.848sec. That was sufficient to beat Dutch rookie Larry ten Voorde by 0.624 seconds. Julien Andlauer was third and Nick Yelloly and Dylan Pereira rounded off the top five, but defending champion Michael Ammermüller qualified in seventh.
Al-Zubair said: “It was a good qualifying for me, especially at the beginning being a top five or top six. I should have gone a bit faster on the second set (tyres) but I was not able to do that and that is where I lost out. We went a bit early at the end of the session and that affected us a bit. But P12 with one guest starter, so P11, is a good place to start. We proved at the start of the session that we have the pace. I think we have more in the bag for the race.”
Al-Wahaibi added: “It was quite a tough qualifying session. I had to stay off the course for the first few minutes for exceeding track limits in practice. It was like a stop-go penalty, but from the start. When we went out on the first set of tyres I got the rhythm and set a decent time. I knew, on the second set, I had to go faster to improve. I did that but it is cold in Spa at the moment and the tyres had not warmed up.
“On the last lap, it was a bit tight with the times and I was sixth fastest going into the last sector, but a small mistake made me lose it. I thought P13 was possible but there was a huge improvement from yesterday and I know we have the pace to be higher up.”
Thomas Preining set the fastest time in Friday evening’s qualifying session with a potent run of 2min 23.456sec to pip Jaap van Lagen to the fastest time by 0.188sec. Nick Yelloly was third quickest, while Al-Zubair and Al-Wahaibi were 14th and 24th of the 33 starters.
The seventh round of the Porsche Mobil 1 Super Cup gets underway at 11.05hrs on Sunday morning.
Ends
For further information:
Firas Nimri, Tel: + 962 7 7728 2000, E-mail: nimrifiras@yahoo.com.