Muscat – Oman Racing’s Ahmad Al Harthy, Marco Sorensen, and Sam De Haan experienced an extremely demoralising 4 Hours of Monza on Sunday, 3rd July, with a highly restrictive Balance of Performance for the team’s Aston Martin Vantage GTE proving absolutely pivotal at the Italian track.

While expecting a difficult race after qualifying sixth fastest in LMGTE, even after extracting all he possibly could from the car, Al Harthy was still very surprised at just how perplexing the situation became in the race with the negative BOP and success ballast from the previous round.

Unable to battle on an even-footing with their rival Ferrari and Porsche entries, the Oman Racing team-mates, who headed into the third event of the European Le Mans Series campaign with the joint lead in the LMGTE championship, gave all they could but had to settle for ninth position.

“We had a good start, a good first lap, and then once things started settling down slightly, we realised what we knew was the case for this race – it would be very difficult to race with the car lacking so much power”, reflected a disappointed Al Harthy.

 “Whatever we did and however perfectly we drove, we were going to struggle with the lack of performance due to the BOP.

“We all did drive perfectly well, our strategy was spot on, the teamwork was spot on, and Sam, Marco and myself all did a good job. These things happen to a certain degree in endurance racing sometimes but, in all honesty, they shouldn’t happen like this. We couldn’t compete, it’s as simple as that. I’m so disappointed because of all the incredibly hard work everyone puts in at Oman Racing,” said Al Harthy, who is supported by The Oman Ministry of Culture, Sports and Youth, OQ, Omantel and MHD-ITICS.

“This is the first time we’ve been put in a situation like this and I hope the organisers now look into it in a correct and fair way for the future. It’s all been very demoralising for us, but now I’m looking forward to going back to Barcelona for round four and fighting back there.”

There is now a lengthy eight-week break in the European Le Mans Series calendar with round four of the championship scheduled for August 27-28 in Barcelona, Spain.