Round 5 - Race Report

With higher ambient temperatures than normal for the time of the year, this didn’t let the competitors hold back and Gulf ProCar Round 5 delivered two races with some intensive racing.

After the frustration of retiring from the previous round at YAS Marina Circuit, Ian Roberts (Praga) was back in full force dominating qualifying and both races at Dubai Autodrome. In previous races Roberts had struggled to out run the very powerful Ferrari Challenge cars to the first corner, but with some tweaks to his starts (by his own admission) he was able keep first place after turn one, then lead the pack for the whole race.

For both races he was joined on the overall podium by Ferrari 488 Challenge EVO drivers,

James Geddie who is having a consistent season, and newcomer Jann Hartmann. This top three was the same for both races, each time a full Dragon Racing podium.

But it was full fight mode for the fourth Dragon Racing entry Alexandros Annivas (Cupra TCR), and other Class TCR contender, international TCR racer René Münnich (Honda TCR). The ALL-INKL.COM Münnich Motorsport entry enjoys racing in the UAE, but at the meantime is also running a test programme preparing the new international season. Münnich had two pole positions, but was not able to capitalise on this advantage in both races, leaving first place to a Annivas resulting in very close racing shadowing each other for the entire race. Both drivers drove on the limit but in the hard but fair racing it was the Cupra who held the upper hand, also recording quickest lap time crossing the finish line with an advantage of only 0.129 seconds in race 1, with  both drivers enjoying the battle. Those wondering if a closer finish would have been possibly got an answer a few hours later in race two, where the scenario was the same but the margin only 0.001 seconds. And with no surprise it was Annivas who was glad that both races didn’t last longer where Münnich was hoping the opposite creating more opportunities to pull race victory in his direction.

Class 2 is where we can find, besides the Praga, the quickest cars of the whole start field and was logically dominated by the two earlier mentioned Ferrari drivers James Geddie and Jann Hartmann. Mohammed Al Hammadi was the only entry for Autohaus and the Porsche completed the podium.

Andrey Solukovtsev was again behind the wheel of the Iskra Motorsports run Toyota GR Supra GT4 and although was the lone entrant in Class 3 he was capable to upset the running order showing impressive lap times and mingling with other Class cars.

Class 4 normally dominated but Toyota GT86’s, but on this occasion, and most likely for the remaining races, a new car entered with Jonathan Mullan and the much-anticipated Honda EP3 from team RKC / PRO - Autotech Garage. The team also enters Ricky Coomber (Honda FD2) in Class 5 but and is hoping to attract new drivers for this easily accessible entry level car.  Qualifying for race one was for VR1 Racing driver Avik Anwar where race two went to Rowe Oil Trackdays driver, and championship leader, Ahmad Al Majid. After a difficult first half of the season Anwar had a trouble free run in race 1 keeping Al Majid at bay whilst Mullan celebrated his debut in the championship with third place.

In race 2 Mullan did even better narrowly holding off Al Majid for victory but with the championship in mind this was a perfect result for Al Majid leading his team Rowe Oil Trackdays to a second, third and fourth place with Scott Dimeler and newcomer in the team Fahad Khan.

Anwar did have some technical worries in this second race and took the safest option to just finish the race with behind his stablemate Ishayat Hossain.

After missing two rounds Aiman Sadat was back but late delivery meant his car was not prepared properly and was only able to do qualifying.

In qualifying it was championship contender Ricky Coomber (Honda FD2) who dominated Class 5. He collected a drive through in race 1 for start procedure issues, but his great catch up work he was catching the leaders till he had to abandon because of electrical failure. The team was not sure the issue could be solved for race 2, but proved to be no issue claiming first place. Two Renault Clio Gen 3 were entered, one by R2RACE for Lev Tolkachev who won also race 1 and the entered by TTR for Sultan Alsuwaidi who made a comeback in the local race scene. Those two drivers were challenging each other on several occasions but Alsuwaidi couldn’t finish race 2 after mechanical problems.

Class RC saw six Renault Clio Gen 5 battling it out but it was all for Vasily Vladykin (Continental Racing) starting both races from pole position and taking first place in both events. TTR had three racers led by team boss Craig Thompson plus regulars Will Morission and Kenny Murray. ARMotors entrant Jon Simmonds was on track after his BMW E30 appearance in YAS. But back in his Clio now,  and got awarded with two times second place. The TTR teammates went for different set up, but it was Will Morission who was able to stay in front in both races. R2RACE joined this class with a brand-new car and driven by Jahid Karim.

Next round is at YAS Marina Circuit on 10 March promising to be an action-packed day with besides the regular two races also the postponed race from the January event.