Al Manar Racing's Al Zubair and Klingmann claim two podium finishes in Zandvoort sprint races
They guided the Al-Manar Racing by Team WRT BMW M4 GT3 EVO to third overall in race one on Saturday and repeated the feat at the Dutch circuit on Sunday afternoon to remain in contention for the Teams' and Drivers' Championships. Both drivers showcased their potential in both attacking and defensive driving during the course of the two absorbing races.
Al-Zubair said: 'Very happy with the result. To come to the first time ever to Zandvoort and to finish P3 in a new car and a new team in the Sprint Championship is something we should be very happy with. On Saturday, we were close to second place but we lost position at the end of race one and finished third.
'Today, we were a solid P3 after a hard fight with the Saintéloc Audi. That made it quite fun. The most important thing now is that we are collecting solid points and we can hopefully continue on this path and secure top spot in the championship.'
Victory in the first of the weekend's races went to the Saintéloc Racing Audi with the Emil Frey Racing Ferrari edging out the Al-Manar Racing crew for second place.
Klingmann then qualified the Al-Manar Racing BMW in third place for the second of the one-hour Sprint races on Sunday with a best lap of 1min 34.508sec. Pole position went to Chris Lulham in the Emil Frey Racing Ferrari.
Thierry Vermeulen of Emil Frey Racing passed the chequered flag to secure the win in race two. The Tresor Attempto Racing Audi finished second and Al-Zubair brought the Al-Manar Racing BMW home in third place just behind Leonardo Moncini in the Audi.
Free practice got proceedings underway on Friday morning and the Al-Manar Racing duo got their weekend off to the perfect start by topping the session. They ran the Team WRT BMW for 50 laps and clocked the fastest tour of 1min 34.232sec on lap 17. The Tresor Attempto Racing Audi R8 LMS GT3 was their closest rival with a best run of 1min 34.550sec.
Pre-qualifying followed in the afternoon and the Emil Frey Racing Ferrari topped the times with a best tour of 1min 34.334sec. Al-Manar Racing's best run was a 1min 35.095sec lap.
Saintéloc Racing's Gilles Magnus topped the times with a lap of 1min 33.033sec in Q1 and the Al-Manar Racing BMW was down in fifth place with a best run of 1min 33.930sec. That meant the crew started the opening race from the rear of the Gold Cup grid.
Action in the GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS Endurance Cup resumes at Monza in Italy on May 30th-June 1st.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Times of Oman
7 hours ago
- Times of Oman
Piastri wins rain-hit F1 Belgian GP to extend title lead
BEIJING: McLaren's Oscar Piastri prevailed in a rain affected Belgian Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps on Sunday, overtaking teammate Lando Norris on the opening racing lap to score his sixth win of 2025 and extend his championship lead. McLaren's 1-2 finish solidified the Woking-based squad's dominance all weekend long, and came after a 90-minute start delay caused by heavy rain and poor visibility. Race control suspended the formation lap behind the safety car after half a lap, sending the field back to the pits before resuming with multiple laps under the safety car. When green flag racing finally began, Piastri launched past pole-sitter Norris through Eau Rouge into Les Combes in a decisive move that set the tone for the rest of the Grand Prix. Piastri and Norris both adopted a one-stop strategy, switching from intermediates to slick tyres as the track began to dry. Piastri opted for medium tyres on lap 12 and rejoined ahead of Norris, who was obliged to wait an extra lap to make his stop and opted for hard tyres. Norris mounted a late charge as Piastri struggled with tyre degradation, and the Briton closed the gap between the two from eight seconds to just three by the start of the penultimate lap, setting the stage for an unlikely last-gasp challenge for the lead. However, Norris ran wide and lost momentum after the La Source hairpin as he began his 43rd lap of 44, ensuring Piastri was not threatened as he crossed the finish line 3.415 seconds clear of his teammate. Charles Leclerc secured third place for Ferrari, surviving intense early pressure from Red Bull's Max Verstappen, who had to be content with fourth after having won Saturday's Sprint race in dry conditions. George Russell finished a disappointed fifth, bemoaning his performance as Mercedes' "worst of the season," and adding that the team must try to understand why its car struggled in conditions that should have suited its characteristics. Alex Albon took a solid sixth for Williams, and Leclerc's teammate Lewis Hamilton rose from a pit lane start to take seventh after an early switch to dry tyres paid dividends. Liam Lawson finished eighth for Racing Bulls, ahead of an impressive Gabriel Bortoleto in his Sauber, with Pierre Gasly rounding out the top ten for Alpine. After having been beaten by Norris in the previous two Grands Prix, Piastri's triumph in Belgium sees him extend his championship lead over his teammate to 16 points, with Verstappen a further 65 points adrift in what increasingly looks like an-McLaren battle for the title. McLaren's perfect day was the team's third 1-2 finish in a row and its sixth so far in 2025, and the papaya squad's current Constructors' Championship points tally of 516 is more than double that of second-placed Ferrari on 248, while Mercedes sits third on 220. The next round of the 2025 Formula 1 season is the Hungarian Grand Prix at the Hungaroring near Budapest on August 3
Times of Oman
7 hours ago
- Times of Oman
Pogacar crowned Tour de France champion for fourth time
Paris: Wout van Aert (Visma-Lease a Bike) gatecrashed Tour de France champion Tadej Pogacar's party as the Belgian put in a monster ride through Montmartre to deny the Slovenian a fifth stage win in the new-look Paris finale. On Sunday, Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) was unable to match the Belgian's massive attack on the third and final ascent of the Butte de Montmartre in a sodden Stage 21 of the Tour in the French capital. World champion Pogacar could still raise his arms to the skies on the Champs-Elysees - not to celebrate his fourth place in the stage, but his fourth Tour triumph. Italy's Davide Ballerini (XDS-Astana) pipped Slovenia's Matej Mohoric (Bahrain Victorious) for second place in an absorbing final stage, which was livened by torrential rain and three laps on a similar lumpy loop that made the Paris 2024 Olympic Road race so memorable last summer, as per a press release. Van Aert's first stage win on the Tour since 2022 came after his American team-mate Matteo Jorgenson put in a series of accelerations to soften up the six-man leading group ahead of the decisive climb up the 1.1km ascent of the Rue Lepic. With times for the general classification taken after the initial four loops of the traditional Champs-Elysees circuit, Pogacar had no need to push for a fifth win. But the 26-year-old did the yellow jersey proud by going all-out for his 22nd career stage win on the Tour. Pogacar had attacked on the previous two climbs in Montmartre, and the race leader looked to have made the decisive move with another acceleration on the final climb. But as Ballerini slipped back the same way as Jorgenson, Mohoric and Matteo Trentin (Tudor Pro Cycling), Van Aert not only drew level with Pogacar but then achieved something no one else has managed in the past three weeks: drop the four-time champion on a climb. Van Aert held a five-second advantage over the summit - a lead which grew as he threw caution to the wind on the technical descent back into central Paris, while his pursuer Pogacar decided to sit up and wait for reinforcements. Victory for Van Aert was the tenth time the Belgian had won a stage on the Tour - but the first since 2022, thanks to a series of injuries that have hampered his performances. "It was a special day out - and really special to win here on the Champs-Elysees again, and on the first occasion where we climbed to Montmartre," the 30-year-old Wout said. "The rain made it quite sketchy, but I managed to stay upright, and I had the full support of my teammates. I really have to thank them for continuing to believe in me." "They helped me control this race so that I could leave it all out there on the last climb. It was our plan, and it worked. I came close a few times [earlier in the Tour], but I was quite far off on several occasions. Yesterday, I wasn't good enough to even make the breakaway." "The hardest thing was to keep the belief, but because people around me were able to do it, I could as well," he concluded. A second stage win for his Visma-Lease a Bike team - following Simon Yates's victory in the Massif Central - was just reward for a team which did itself proud despite being unable to deliver Jonas Vingegaard to a third win, according to Wout. "We came here with the ambition to win the yellow jersey, but the strongest rider in the race and the biggest rider in the world, Tadej Pogacar, won it," said Wout. "We tried to give him competition, and I am proud of how we tried to beat him. We had a great group, and we won the team classification, so we should be proud," he added. Pogacar might have missed out on a final-day bonanza in the City of Light, but he nevertheless joins British legend Chris Froome on four Tour titles and moves within one of the outright record of five shared by Jacques Anquetil, Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault and Miguel Indurain. With the final times for the general classification taken 50km from the finish because of the severe weather, there were no changes in the final top 10 in Paris. Pogacar won the 112th edition of the Tour by 4'24" over Denmark's Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike), whose two Tour wins in 2022 and 2023 now seem like a distant memory. Germany's Florian Lipowitz (Red Bull-Bora Hansgrohe) joined Pogacar and Vingegaard on the final podium after an impressive debut Tour saw the 24-year-old take third place at 11'00" and the white jersey. Scotland's Oscar Onley (Team Picnic PostNL) was fourth and Austria's Felix Gall (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) fifth. "It was a great decision by the organisers to neutralise the stage because no one had to risk anything and it was fair play," Pogacar said. "I gave it a go because I was on the front. But Wout was incredibly strong today, and he did an amazing attack on the top of the climb, and he deserved this big, big win," he added. In a dominating display of his all-round invincibility this July, Pogacar won four stages and secured the polka dot jersey as the race's best climber. He also finished second in the green jersey standings, won by the Italian Jonathan Milan (Lidl-Trek), who won two sprint stages in his debut appearance. The world champion moved into the yellow jersey for the first time after finishing behind Belgium's Remco Evenepoel (Soudal Quick-Step) in the Stage 5 individual time trial at Caen, one day after he notched his first stage win on the punchy finish at Rouen. Dutchman Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck) took back the yellow jersey one day later in Vire Normandie, before Pogacar's victory at Mur-de-Bretagne saw him back in the maillot jaune. Stage 6 winner Ben Healy (EF Education-EasyPost) kept the jersey warm for Pogacar for two stages after the Irishman starred in the day's breakaway on Bastille Day. Pogacar then started the second week of the race with a bang, winning back-to-back stages in the Pyrenees and moving back into yellow at Hautacam in Stage 12. The 26-year-old Slovenian extended his lead in the Peyragudes mountain time trial before riding in a more measured manner in the Alps - eschewing extra stage wins for defensive riding that nevertheless saw his lead over Vingegaard stretch to almost four and a half minutes. "I am super happy that it is over. But I quite enjoyed the whole Tour, and I think I will maybe already miss it next week. It was a pleasure to be here, to wear this yellow jersey, to ride with my team-mates and fight against all my opponents," Pogacar said. It remains to be seen if Pogacar will join his big rival Vingegaard at the start of the Vuelta a Espana next month, with the four-time champion showing clear signs of fatigue in the third week. "Let us take one week off first. I want to enjoy some summer days - I want some hots days, but without the suffering on the bike. So, let's take a week off and we will see afterwards," he said, keeping his options open. A long season has already seen Pogacar win Strade Bianche, the Tour of Flanders and Liege-Bastogne-Liege in the sprint, as well as come second behind Van der Poel in his debut Paris-Roubaix. But it was at the Vuelta in 2019 where Pogacar exploded onto the scene - winning three stages on his way to a third-place finish in his debut Grand Tour - and victory in Spain would see Pogacar complete his clean sweep of Grand Tour victories a week before he turned 27. Should he do so, he would become only the eighth rider in history to achieve the Treble, and the first since Froome in 2018.
Times of Oman
15 hours ago
- Times of Oman
Chloe Kelly shines again as England lift Euro 2025 title after dramatic penalty shootout win over Spain
Basel: History repeated itself in the most thrilling fashion as Chloe Kelly once again became England's star, guiding the Lionesses to Euro 2025 glory with the decisive spot-kick in a tense 3-1 penalty shootout win over Spain in the final. The match, played in Basel, ended 1-1 after extra time, before England held their nerve in the shootout to successfully defend their title, according to Sky Sports. It wasn't an easy ride for the Lionesses, who took the long route to the trophy yet again. After battling through extra time in all three knockout games, and going to penalties for the second time in the tournament, England showed tremendous grit and belief to come out on top. Once more, it was Chloe Kelly who delivered when it mattered most. Just like she did at Wembley in 2022 against Germany, Kelly calmly stepped up and slotted the winning penalty this time with her now-signature run-up, sealing a memorable night for England. Kelly had come on in the 40th minute, replacing Lauren James, who appeared to be struggling after picking up a knock in the semi-final against Italy. Mariona Caldentey had put Spain ahead in the 25th minute, heading in Ona Batlle's pinpoint cross. The Lionesses, just before the hour mark, Kelly made an impact, this time as the provider. Her perfectly measured cross found Alessia Russo, who made no mistake, heading home the equaliser to bring England back into the contest. Spain piled on the pressure during extra time, with Salma Paralluelo coming closest to finding a winner. England, though, had their own hero between the sticks. Hannah Hampton, who has been a pillar of strength throughout the tournament, produced yet another outstanding performance. Her crucial save against Claudia Pina at a tight angle kept England level in the second half, and she carried that momentum into the shootout. Drama unfolded from the very first penalty of the shootout. England's Beth Mead converted her attempt initially, but had to retake it after a rare double-touch. Her second effort was saved. Patri Guijarro gave Spain an early edge, but it was short-lived. Hampton came up big once again, saving penalties from Mariona Caldentey and Aitana Bonmati, while Paralluelo fired her effort wide. For England, Niamh Charles and Alex Greenwood converted their penalties confidently. Despite a miss from captain Leah Williamson, it all came down to Chloe Kelly and she didn't disappoint. With ice in her veins, Kelly stepped up and calmly slotted the winning penalty, sending the England fans into raptures and confirming their second successive Euro title.
