Round 5 - Race Report
Gulf ProCar 2023/24 Round 5 at Yas Marina Circuit
Yas Marina Circuit, Abu Dhabi. Saturday 20 January 2024.
It was only two weeks ago that the Gulf ProCar community was at Yas Marina Circuit and on Saturday we were back at the iconic track this time on the full GP track lay-out.
Biggest news in the lead up to the race weekend was Greystone GT who besides Gulf ProCar regular Ryan Jurgensen confirmed the entries of two McLaren Artura GT4, one for McLaren Trophy runner-up Mark Hopton and the other for newcomer Mark Kempster. This announcement was testimony of the commitment the team has with their Dubai base and the believe and trust in this regional championship.
It is a tradition now that Class 2 is where Dragon Racing has a monopoly this time with a three-car entry to start with two Ferrari 488 Challenge Evo. Jan Sandann is becoming a regular face in the series and not shy to put up a strong fight and then Mamoun Alkabbani who is making his debut in Gulf ProCar and it was his first car race, another pupil of the Dragon Racing programme. Third entry was for Guru Balasubramanian in the impressive Porsche 992 Cup who also likes to put his car to the limits which was shown in previous rounds. All three drivers took full advantage of all the testing opportunities available before race weekend.
Pole position was for both races claimed by Guru and in each he was able to accomplish to extend this into victory. But he didn’t get this offered on a golden plate facing a lot of resistance from Jan Sandmann swapping places, pushing each other wide and even contact. Whilst both drivers were content how the race developed Jan felt he should have done better. Mamoun saw it all happening in front of him and managed to bring his car home in third place.
As mentioned earlier Guru won both races but the second one didn’t start the way he liked and had to chase both Ferrari’s in again a hard-fought battle before taking gold again declaring after the race that the top speed of the Ferrari were a big challenge to match. In race 1 the gap between the top two runners was just over a second and in race 2 only 3 tenths of a second so both equally matched in performance.
Mamoun managed to keep both races clean adding experience to the steep learning curve he is confronted with.
In Class 3 big absent was Gulf ProCar regular Keith Gatehouse in the Mercedes AMG GT4 of GPM Racing run by Dragon Racing and Vasily Vladykin in the Toyota GR Supra GT4 Evo from Continental Racing both drivers concentrating for the occasion on the Yas 6 hours race.
But the presence of the three McLaren proved to be an exciting topic which was confirmed on Thursday’s free practice with Mark Hopton at the top of the timing sheets at certain times showcasing the potential of the Artura.
But unfortunately, due to incidents in testing both new entries Mark Hopton (Thursday testing) and Mark Kempster (Friday testing) had to withdraw leaving Greystone GT with only one entry with the McLaren 570S GT4 in the hands of Ryan Jurgensen who has taken till now three podiums from four races. Main objective for Ryan is to focus on his own race, gaining experience and more importantly finishing as much races as possible in his quest to collect as many finishes as possible to obtain his international license.
In Class 4 it was a dominant Aiman Sadat who led the pack and all issues he had last season seemed to be far away since he joined Rowe Oil Trackdays. Aiman was the only driver of this pack able to set a decent lap time compared with his competitors. Two times first place is proof of potential of the young driver. Stable mate Ahmed Al Khaja was running a double programme this weekend with also racing in the Yas 6 hours but didn’t want to jeopardise his title ambitions not only in Class 4 but also in the overall Gulf ProCar championship. Finishing both races and avoiding all sorts of problems was for him the main objective to collect the necessary points. There were the share of battles but all in a fair manor. Avik finishing third got excluded from race 1 because of a technical infringement and after the necessary adjustments was allowed to start race 2. Here both contenders found each other again even causing Aiman into a spin where little time was lost and still claiming victory after Avik dropped in performance and barely made it to the finish line. Ahmed Al Khaja succeeded in his plans scoring important points for the championship.
Sole Honda entrant in this Toyota dominated Class was Krishna Redy Pasil who fought off illness as for him first priority is to gain as much track time as possible showing an improvement in each outing.
Gulf ProCar has now a big break and next round is at Dubai Autodrome on the GP Track on first weekend of March.