MEDIA INFORMATION
PORSCHE MOBIL 1 SUPER CUP
Round 2 – Monaco, May 23-26, 2019
For immediate release
Saturday, May 25th, 2019
OMAN’S AL-ZUBAIR RECOVERS FROM PRACTICE CRASH TO
GUIDE REPLACEMENT CAR TO 11TH IN MONACO QUALIFYING
MONTE-CARLO (MONACO): Oman’s Al-Faisal Al-Zubair made a dramatic start to his challenge for success in the second round of the 2019 Porsche Mobil 1 Super Cup on Monaco’s 3.337km street circuit.
The young BWT Lechner Racing Team driver finished the practice session with the seventh fastest time, but was forced to call upon a replacement car for qualifying after clipping a barrier and damaging his GT3 towards the end of the practice stint. He eventually qualified for the race in 11th place.
Al-Zubair’s team-mate and defending champion Michael Ammermüller set the fastest lap of 1min 35.564sec in the practice session. That was sufficient to beat Jaap van Lagen by just 1/100th of a second.
Mikkel Pedersen, Larry ten Voorde and Florian Latorre rounded off the top five, with Al-Zubair finishing the stint with a best lap of 1min 36.430sec before damaging his car.
Ten Voorde went on to claim provisional pole position in the qualifying session with a best tour of 1min 34.939sec. That was 0.024sec quicker than second-placed Ammermüller. Pedersen, rookie Ayhancan Güven and Latorre rounded off the top five. Al-Zubair carded a best lap of 1min 36.991sec to snatch 11th place in the session that ended prematurely.
However, Ten Voorde and Güven were deemed to have set their fastest laps under a yellow flag and pole was handed to Ammermüller with Pedersen in second place. Ten Voorde slipped to third and Güven dropped to sixth.
Al-Zubair said: “It was actually really good in the practice because we were as high as P4 or P5 and then we were P7 and I felt we had a bit more to give. Unfortunately I made a bit of a mistake and went off. There is no forgiveness here when you make a mistake. I clipped a barrier.
“We were thankfully able to get another car for qualifying. I finished P11 and I was a little bit disappointed with that. I thought that we were much faster than P11. I got traffic and the session was stopped before the end. That was definitely not ideal. I really think I should have been sixth or seventh. It’s tough here to be honest.”
The second race in the Porsche Mobil 1 Super Cup roars into life at 10.30hrs on Sunday morning.
Ends
For further information:
Firas Nimri, Tel: + 962 7 7728 2000, E-mail: nimrifiras@yahoo.com.
Twitter: @FZRacingOman