Sunday 22 / December / 2024
Muscat: European Le Mans Series LMGTE championship leader Ahmad Al Harthy returns to Italy later this week for the third round of the season at legendary Monza, where the Aston Martin racer is hoping to deliver another star performance and further enhance his points tally.
After a memorable, history-making weekend at Imola just over a month ago – where Oman’s number one racing driver stormed to a sensational maiden ELMS race victory in the LMGTE class on only his second outing in the championship – more of the same is the target just days from now.
Of course, Al Harthy and team-mates Sam De Haan and Aston Martin factory driver Marco Sorensen do not take the challenge lightly. Not least due to how their 2022 campaign in the ELMS began at Paul Ricard in France in April, lap one contact causing immediate retirement with broken steering.
Bouncing back in the best possible style, with an outstanding performance weekend-long in Imola, the Oman Racing trio were exceptional. Flawless in qualifying, Al Harthy dominated to secure a dream LMGTE pole position.
He was then faultless in the four-hour race where he set things up perfectly for the victory bid with a superb double-stint, calmly dealing with several Full Course Yellow and Safety Car interventions and never putting a wheel wrong. De Haan completed hour three of the race before Sorensen took the run to the flag in hour four – winning a lap clear of the sister TF Sport-run Oman Racing car.
It is that same teamwork which the squad is determined to replicate at legendary Monza this coming weekend, 2nd/3rd July, a track where Al Harthy and Oman Racing have enjoyed great success in the past in GT3 racing.
Perhaps surprisingly, it’s three years since the Omani last raced at Monza. During his previous visit in 2019, he achieved a top three podium finish in the Pro-Am class of the then Blancpain Endurance Cup – now known as the GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup. In 2017, he raced to his first Pro-Am victory in GTWCE at Monza with then team-mate Jonny Adam.
“I can’t wait to be back at Monza, it’s been a while since we last raced there so I really am looking forward to driving there in the LMGTE car”, said the Oman Ministry of Culture, Sports and Youth, OQ, Omantel and MHD-ITICS backed sportsman, “Imola was incredible, absolutely incredible, and we all hope to deliver a similar performance this weekend.
“Everyone in the team worked so hard, the TF guys did an amazing job with the strategy and Sam and Marco were fantastic. Personally, I really was delighted with my own performance and to have achieved the first ELMS win for Oman is something so very special. Obviously, taking the lead of the LMGTE championship was the icing on the cake for us and we hope to build on that in Imola and put some space between ourselves and our rivals.”
Oman Racing’s first track time at Monza with the No.69 Aston Martin Vantage GTE will come on Friday, 1st July, with the opening free practice ahead of a standalone session for the ‘Bronze’ graded drivers, such as Al Harthy. Free practice two will take place on Saturday, 2nd July, with LMGTE qualifying beginning at 13.40 local time.
