Muscat – Decorated Omani racing driver Ahmad al Harthy will embark on arguably his highest profile season of competition yet this year after officially confirming a move into the globe’s biggest endurance racing category – the FIA World Endurance Championship.

Revealing the full details of his 2023 campaign at the Muscat headquarters of the Oman Automobile Association on Sunday, during a specially organised event, attended by a range of dignitaries, sponsors and key partners, Al Harthy confirmed the history-making ‘dream move’ into FIA World Endurance where he will again race for the Oman Racing with TF Sport squad.

Al Harthy, a double Pro-Am Class Champion and multiple race winner in the GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup, Pro-Am winner at the Total 24 Hours of Spa and a race winner in GTE in the European Le Mans Series, will be partnered by Charlie Eastwood and Michael Dinan.

The highly competitive trio will share the No 25 Aston Martin GTE in the GTE Am class of FIA World Endurance, the only class for production-based cars in the prestigious championship – which will feature a total of 38 entries across all three of its classes this season. Notably, 2023 marks the 110th anniversary of the world-famous Aston Martin marque.

 Importantly, Al Harthy retains his incredibly supportive and very high-profile portfolio of sponsors for the coming season at world level, namely the Oman Ministry of Culture, Sports and Youth, OQ, Omantel and MHD-ITICS.

Beginning with the Official Prologue test days at Sebring in the USA on 11th/12th March, the opening race of the 2023 FIA World Endurance Championship season – the 1,000 miles of Sebring – will be contested on 17th March at the renowned Florida track.

The championship will then visit Portimao in Portugual and Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium in April before endurance racing’s crown jewel event, the Le Mans 24 Hours in France, over the weekend 10th/11th June – Al Harthy’s debut in the legendary classic.

In July the category visits Monza in Italy, the penultimate race of the season will be at Fuji in Japan in September and the championship will conclude in the Middle East on 4th November at Bahrain International Circuit.

“I’m super-excited to officially confirm Oman Racing’s entry and debut in the FIA World Endurance Championship in GTE Am, this is such a dream move for everyone associated with Oman Racing and the culmination of so much hard work behind the scenes with all of our amazing partners and, of course, Tom Ferrier and his team at TF Sport,” said Al Harthy.

“For me, this is by far the biggest challenge of my career but one I am absolutely relishing alongside my very capable team-mates Charlie (Eastwood) and Michael (Dinan),” Al Harthy said.

Vice Chairman of Oman Automobile Association, Brigadier Jamal al Ta’ei added: “On behalf of the Oman Automobile Association I would like to say how very proud we are to have been central to the official launch of Ahmad and Oman Racing’s 2023 motor racing programme.”