DHL Gulf Radical Cup - Bahrain - Rounds 3 & 4 – Desert 400
Wednesday, November 7th, 2007
The Middle East’s premier sports racing car championship, the DHL Gulf Radical Cup, got off to a flying start at the Desert 400 with two Arab drivers taking a win apiece. This was an excellent demonstration of the good progress that local drivers are making in the emerging motor racing arena in the Middle East.
In Race One, Omran Alowais (Alowais Motorsport) from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) made a great start from 4th on the grid to follow Bahraini driver Fahad Al-Musalem (Team 777) into turn one, only to find Al-Musalem running wide. This put Alowais into the lead – a position he was not about to relinquish. Pole sitter Bassam Kronfli (EVO Middle East) was to lose his advantage after suffering a problem with his throttle cable at the start and was to retire after cooking his brakes whilst trying to deal with a throttle stuck in the full-on position! He obviously did a good job with the problem, setting fastest race lap at 1:27.59 on his fourth tour.
This left the field wide open for the other visiting racers from Dubai to make the best of the chaos at the front. So it was experienced Kiwi racer, Blair Cole (Al Nabooda Racing) who moved forward very nicely to pick up extremely valuable points and a trophy after finishing in 3rd place. This fine performance would put his team in the lead of the Championship.
Al-Musalem recovered to pick up the second place DHL Trophy from BIC’s Martin Whitaker, with Al-Owais standing proudly underneath the Emirati flag as he was presented the Winner’s trophy by DHL’s in-house national drag-racing Champion, Ali Aryan.
Race Two in Bahrain for the DHL Gulf Radical Cup provided one of the closest races ever seen in the Middle East’s premier sports racing car championship. This time it was Bahrain’s top sportscar driver, Fahad Al-Musalem (Team 777) who managed to hold on to a very tenuous position at the front of the pack in his Radical SR3 as he was put under enormous pressure from both Omran Alowais (Alowais Motorsport) and from the Canadian driver, Bassam Kronfli (EVO Middle East).
Having won Race One, Alowais was able to make good use of his pole position on the customary rolling start, but immediately found himself under pressure from Al-Musalem who was clearly intent on claiming his first victory in this very competitive series.
Within two laps, Kronfli had moved up from the back of the grid following his DNF in race one and came up behind Alowais and Al-Musalem, clearly intent on getting to the front as soon as possible.
The scene was set for a titanic battle as these three battled and scrapped for the lead, often only inches apart. Alowais was losing out down the straights with too much rear wing, but gained under braking with more downforce. But with the slipstream effect, Al-Musalem was able to slip by and so did Kronfli – and this was how it finished, with the three cars finishing within half a second.
Behind the leaders, several interesting battles were being played out, with John Stanley (Ardentia Search) spinning off the track and taking previous third place man, Blair Cole (Al Nabooda Racing) with him. Stanley rejoined the race to finish fourth. This hotly contested pan-Gulf championship continues on Dubai’s Grand Prix Circuit on 17th November.
This hotly contested pan-Gulf championship continues at Dubai Motorsport Festival on 16th & 17th November alongside the FIA GT3.
Gulf Radical Cup
