Al Zubair to compete in Dubai 24H race for Getspeed Mercedes team

Muscat: Oman’s Al Faisal Al Zubair will team up with Austria’s Dominik Baumann and Martin Konrad, Germany’s Fabian Schiller and American racer Anthony Bartone to drive the Getspeed Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo at this weekend’s 19th Hankook 24H Dubai at the Dubai Autodrome.

The Omani ace has been invited by Getspeed Mercedes team to participate in the challenging endurance race.

Al Zubair said: “I am very excited to be doing Dubai 24H again this year. We have a line-up of Dominik Baumann, Fabian Schiller, myself, Anthony Bartone and Martin Konrad. We are really looking forward to the race. I’m sure it will be tough as usual with the amount of cars and the night stints and all.

“Looking at the bigger picture, I will be joining Antony Bartone’s car so it will not be Al-Manar Racing on this occasion. I was invited by Anthony to participate in his team, so I am happy and honoured to be able to race with their team, instead of me preparing the whole car. Nonetheless, we have a decent line-up to fight for the overall podium and the win. We will be preparing towards that.”

Fierce competition comes from the likes of Grove Racing’s Mercedes, HAAS RT’s Audi R8 and the Eastalent Racing Team Audi in the hands of Christopher Haase, Simon Reicher, Markus Winkelhock, Mike Zhou and Gilles Magnus.

Al Zubair will also lock horns with former Porsche Super Cup rival Dylan Pereira and his crew in the Attempto Racing Audi R8 LMS, the French Sainteloc Junior Team, Britain’s Century Motorsport, Dragon Racing’s Ferrari 296 GT3 and the 7TSix McLaren.

The Dubai 24-Hour race was inaugurated in 2006 and ran as a 24-hour series race for the first time in 2015.

The first official practice sessions for the GT3 runners get underway on Friday (January 26th) before three 15-minute qualifying stints from 16.50hrs and an additional 90-minute night practice session, starting at 19.15hrs, rounds off the day’s action.

The Hankook 24H Dubai then fires into life at 13.00hrs on Saturday afternoon (January 27th) with the chequered flag falling for the leading crew at 13.00hrs on Sunday (January 28th).