Dubai: Led by Shaikh Hasher Al Maktoum, the Dubai Falcons Racing Team soared to victory in the Dubai Kartdrome 600 Laps — round two of the Kartdrome Endurance Championship, which was the final race ahead of the UAE’s summer break.
Dubai Falcons recovered from a mediocre start at 9pm on Friday night to take command of the race by about midnight before taking the chequered flag at 9.20am on Saturday.
With Shaikh Hasher, Saeed Al Muhairi and Mohammad Al Mutawa’a on driving duty, and Mike Willkes making the calls from the pitwall along with Luigi Gariano, the outfit made few mistakes and kept up a consistent pace throughout the 600 laps.
Shaikh Hasher said: “It feels really great to win here today. The last race before summer, we go away on a high. We had very tough competition from CG Racing throughout the race. We could not relax at all.
“We did not have the best start, but managed to stay in touch with the top three. CG Racing 2 was very strong early in the race. But as the race developed we started to get an advantage with the second and then the third stint. From then on I think we started to control the race.”
By the time the chequered flag fell after 12 hours, 21 minutes and 52.23 seconds of racing, the Dubai Falcons had an advantage of three laps and had recorded the fastest lap of the race with a time of 1min 10.449sec. Apart from the overall win and Pro Category top points score, as an all-Emirati team they also took the Nations Cup prize.
Chasing hard all night were CG Racing Pro, with SWS Endurance world champions Alban Varutti and Ramez Azam in the line-up alongside David Terrien and Rami Azam.
Behind them were CG Racing 2, who finished third overall and with that took top honours in the corporate category. Their driver line-up was Majid Traboulsi, Omar Moukachar, Salem Salem and Piers Pakenham-Walsh.
Crowning a strong race for the Choueiri Group-backed outfit were CG Racing 1, who were fifth overall and made it a one-two for the team in the corporate standings.
Team captain Oliver Saade said: “We started out very well and were running second early on in the race. We dropped down to 14th at one stage, and this was a big challenge. But the boys dug deep and put in the hard work, showing their skills — not only the drivers but also the support crew, who handled the strategy. As usual there was great team spirit and again a good result for the entire team.”
The two CG Racing corporate squads were split by fourth-placed Timeless Racing.
Round three of the Dubai Kartdrome Endurance Championship driven by Mini is scheduled to take place on October 4.
