AL
Harthy Finishes 3rd overall standing in Formula Renault
BARC Winter Series
Croft Circuit UK: Oman Racing Team
driver Ahmad Said Al Harthy ended his Formula Renault
BARC Winter Series campaign on a high this weekend
finishing both races in 3rd position, visiting the
podium a record three times in the championship.
Although
the results were identical in both races, the actual
races were very different because of the changing
weather conditions. There was a spell of rain before
the cars went out for qualifying making the track
very slippery and extremely tricky for the drivers.
Ahmad needed time to adapt and changing grip levels
and once his wet tires had reached the proper temperature
was able to push and set two good lap times to keep
him 3rd in his overall class. “Qualifying in
the wet was a challenge because of the changing grip
conditions on the track, it was very easy to make
a mistake and end up in a spin, as was the case for
some of the other drivers, I had to keep pushing till
the last minutes as I knew the track kept drying which
meant it kept getting faster”, Al Harthy mentioned
on qualifying.
The
first race of the weekend was in similar conditions
compared to qualifying, all drivers were out on wet
tires, Ahmad had a great start and was able to stay
out of trouble, which was very important specially
in wet conditions due to the slippery condition which
saw Pentus from Estonia in 2nd place retire. Al Harthy
kept pushing and quickly moved into the lead while
championship leader Lloyd lost control and ran wide
in the hair-pin of lap 2, knowing that Lloyd had regained
control of his car and was also pushing Al Harthy
ran wide in lap 6 and dropped 3 places putting him
in 4th. With 10 laps remaining Ahmad was able to stay
focused and overtake championship leader with a beautiful
overtaking maneuver over Lloyd claiming back his 3rd
place, which guaranteed him a podium finish. “It
was a very exciting race for me as I always enjoy
racing in changing conditions, when I took the lead
it was a great feeling to be leading a race in the
UK my dream was coming true to have a race win, but
running wide into one of the corners made me lose
positions, this is part of raising my game and getting
ready for 2008 so overall I was happy with my race
and specially overtaking into 3rd was a very nice
feeling”, commented Al Harthy after race one.
Race
two was going to be very different from the morning
session, the track was now dry and all the competitors
moved to a dry set-up with their cars. Ahmad managed
to pull away from the start and increase the gap between
his closest rivals, while staying close to both Pentus
(Estonia) and Lloyd (Wales) finishing in 3rd. “It
was a very different race to the first one, our speeds
picked up and the grip levels were very high, I kept
pushing till the final lap as I was not sure about
the gap behind me while trying to catch Lloyd in 2nd
place, my Hillspeed Team did a fantastic job with
the car, as we had a smooth and reliable car for the
entire weekend”.
“The
idea behind joining the Winter Series was to be able
to grow and get the experience of running with the
experienced racers, all the hard work is paying off
and I am very happy to be on the podium and represent
Oman professionally in Motor sports here in the United
Kingdom”, an excited Ahmad remarked.
