Muscat – A host of difficulties during the finale of the FIA World Endurance Championship season at Bahrain International Circuit on Saturday prevented Ahmad al Harthy from adding to his 2025 points tally.

Hoping to mount a strong challenge from ninth on the LMGT3 grid, the eight-hour race began well for the Omani with an impressive and committed first few laps, elevating him to sixth position and putting the No.46 BMW M4 LMGT3 into the thick of the points-paying places.

From there, the race tailed off and performance was impacted by a confluence of issues, which meant the Team WRT trio had to settle for an eventual 15th-place finish despite their very best efforts behind the wheel.

In terms of the championship battles, OQ Group, Sohar International, Omantel, Oman LNG, BMW Oman, Oman Ministry of Culture, Sports and Youth and Experience Oman-supported racer Al Harthy ended the FIA WEC campaign eighth in the driver standings with Valentino Rossi and Kelvin Van der Linde. In the team championship, the squad was also eighth.

Lining up ninth in LMGT3 for the start of the Bapco Energies 8 hours of Bahrain, Al Harthy made a good launch and quickly climbed into eighth place during the first few turns. Getting ahead of Team WRT’s sister BMW midway around the opening lap, he held seventh and heavily pressured the No.27 Aston Martin before sweeping past into the first corner at the beginning of the next tour.

Setting his sights on the next group, Al Harthy closed within no time and was the fastest driver in LMGT3 at that point. Things plateaued for a while but at the start of lap 11 the Aston Martin went back through, elbowing Al Harthy to seventh, and the No.46 BMW then slipped to ninth on lap 17.

Making the team’s first pit-stop of the race just after the 50-minute mark, one of the earliest drivers to do so, the Omani re-emerged in 17th position but when the race order had settled after the initial round of stops were complete, he was in 12th place.

As the race moved on, performance stalled. After pit-stop number two Al Harthy was in 18th position but he climbed into 14th before the third pit visit with two hours and 40 minutes elapsed. Rossi got behind the wheel for his first race miles and he was 14th at the three-hour mark, before then moving back up towards the top 10 after the next round of pit visits.