Muscat – Oman’s number one racing driver Ahmad Al Harthy scorched to his second pole position of the European Le Mans Series campaign at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya on Saturday to put Oman Racing at the front of the LMGTE grid for the fourth race of the 2022 season.

Following a very challenging weekend at Monza in Italy at the beginning of July, where the squad was impacted by a very negative Balance of Performance grading, normal service has been resumed in Spain with Al Harthy seriously impressing in the short and sharp 10-minute qualifying period.

“What a beautiful session that was!”, said an overjoyed Al Harthy, “I’m really, really happy with our performance and I must say a big thank you to the team who have been working extremely hard since we arrived here in Barcelona. It’s a very tricky circuit to maximise our one-lap performance, but they gave me everything to make it possible.”

 The event started pretty much perfectly for the Omani and team-mates Sam De Haan and Marco Sorensen on Friday with the fastest LMGTE time in opening free practice and Al Harthy then went on to conclude the subsequent session for the Bronze graded drivers’ fourth quickest.

In the second free practice on Saturday morning the team was eighth, with plenty of good work having been done by the TF Sport squad – which looks after the Oman Racing entry – with the set-up of the No.69 Aston Martin Vantage GTE ahead of the afternoon’s grid determining session.

Although some clouds gathered above the circuit, the temperatures remained very warm during qualifying and Al Harthy’s performance was, likewise, red hot. Posting a time of 1m46.407 seconds on his first flying lap to take the provisional pole, he then improved to 1m45.720 seconds on lap two and secured the pole with his third lap of the session – 1m45.692 seconds.

“I’m extremely delighted with where we are now compared to what we had at Monza, everything is much better here so far”, said the racer who is supported by the Oman Ministry of Culture, Sports and Youth, SoharInternational Bank, OQ, Omantel and MHD-ITICS.

“We know it’s going to be a very, very tough and long race, the tyre degradation here is the highest from all the circuits we visit in the ELMS so looking after them is key.

“Starting from the pole is the first part of the job, now we really hope to have a good race and to be able to challenge. Of course, a big thank you as always to our amazing partners and to everyone at Oman Racing and TF Sport for the hard work so far this weekend.”