Muscat – Al Manar Racing by Team WRT’s Al Faisal al Zubair and Jens Klingmann completed their programme of Sprint series races in the GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS with fourth and second-place finishes at the Circuit Ricardo Tormo Valencia in Valencia, Spain.

The BMW M4 GT3 EVO pair qualified fourth for both of the races, and a strong performance in the second of the Sprints on Sunday saw them take the runner-up spot in the Gold Cup section behind the newly-crowned Sprint series champions, Thierry Vermeulen and Chis Lulham, in the Emil Frey Racing Ferrari 296 GT3.

The two results enabled the Al Manar Racing duo to finish the season fourth in both the Sprint Teams’ and Drivers’ Championships.

A delighted Oman-based Al Zubair said: “This was an amazing way to finish the season with second place in the second Sprint race, despite a five-second penalty. This was a good way to end a strong Sprint season, my best ever.

“I think on a personal level, this has been my best performance. I am very happy. Personally, it has been getting better and better and that is the most important thing. I have been racing 12 years and improving every year and that is something I strive for. Hopefully, we can have a good finale in Barcelona and bring back the win.

“Unfortunately, qualifying today was very tough with a red flag and we had already used our push lap and we used our peak. After that, it was just a case of managing it but the pace was solid after that and that brought us P2 in the last race.”

After a brief shakedown in the initial private test session on Thursday, the Al-Manar Racing by Team WRT operation ran the BMW M4 strongly in free practice on Friday morning. Al-Zubair and Klingmann carded a best lap of 1min 32.420sec and that was the third quickest tour of the Gold Cup entrants behind the Emil Frey Racing Ferrari and the Garage 59 Mclaren.

They were classified fifth of the Gold Cup crews in Friday afternoon’s pre-qualifying stint and then the attention turned to the first qualifying session for Sprint race one on Saturday morning. Thomas Fleming and Louis Prette earned Gold Cup pole with a lap of 1min 31.387sec in the Garage 59 McLaren with Emil Frey Racing qualifying second ahead of CSA Racing.

A lap of 1min 31.811sec was sufficient to give Al Manar Racing fourth on the Gold Cup grid ahead of Saintéloc Racing. Tresor Attempto Racing was not classified.

The Garage 59 McLaren stole the show in the first 36-lap Sprint race and finished second in the overall results, in addition to winning the Gold Cup section. The Emil Frey Racing Ferrari and the CSA Racing McLaren rounded off the podium with Al Zubair and Klingmann coming home in a close fourth in the Gold Cup and seventh overall.

Al Manar Racing by Team WRT rounds off its successful season in the GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS with the final endurance round of the season in Barcelona on October 10th-12th.

SPRINT SERIES

Final standings

1. Emil Frey Racing 118.5pts

2. Garage 59 106pts

3. Saintéloc Racing 101.5pts

4. Al-Manar Racing by Team WRT 88pts

5. Tresor Attempto Racing 85pts

6. CSA Racing 23pts

7. Barwell Motorsport 15pts