BARCELONA, Spain: Al Manar Racing by Team WRT’s Al Faisal al Zubair, Jens Klingmann and Ben Tuck head into the last race of the GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS season aiming to round off their endurance campaign with the Gold Cup title at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya on the weekend (October 11-12).
The BMW M4 GT3 EVO trio are currently second in the Drivers’ Championship, 16 points adrift of the Verstappen Racing.com trio of Thierry Vermeulen, Chis Lulham and Harry King after claiming victory at the last round at the Nurburgring. They trail their rivals by 12 points in the Teams’ Championship. CSA Racing also has a mathematical shot at the title.
Al Manar Racing has already secured the overall Gold Teams’ Championship before the final round and finished the Sprint season in fourth in both the Teams’ and Drivers’ Championships.
Oman-based Al Zubair said: “Looking forward to the race this weekend, the final round of the championship and the last of the endurance rounds. We are in a great place in the overall championship (Drivers), having secured second. In endurance, we are in second place, 16 points behind the leaders and we still have a shot at winning the endurance title. We will be going all-in for it.
“Barcelona is a circuit I usually like but it’s a difficult track for the BMW. Let’s hope that the BOP is on our side this weekend and we can give a strong fight and end the championship in a great way.”
This weekend’s finale has attracted a record 60-car field and the largest ever assembled for this event at the Spanish circuit. In addition to the title contenders, Optimum Motorsport, Team RJN and Garage 59 will field a trio of McLarens, the Tresor Attempto Racing Audi is present along with the Paul Motorsport Lamborghini in the Gold Cup category.
The GTWC finale shares the circuit with the Lamborghini Super Trofeo, GT2 European Series powered by Pirelli and the GT4 European Series powered by RAFA Racing Club.
Two hours of free practice gets underway from 09.00hrs, local time on Saturday morning. This is followed by pre-qualifying, starting at 14.35hrs.
Race qualifying will be split into a short stint for each driver from 10.25hrs on Sunday and the final three-hour endurance race of the season fires into life at 15.00hrs (CET).
GTWC ENDURANCE
TEAMS – latest Gold Cup standings
1. Verstappen.com Racing 106 pts
2. Al Manar Racing by Team WRT 94 pts
3. CSA Racing 84 pts
4. Team RJN 36 pts
5. Optimum Motorsport 36 pts
6. Garage 59 34 pts
7. Herberth Motorsport 33 pts
8. Paul Motorsport 33 pts
9. Tresor Attempto Racing 29 pts
10. Ring Motorsport 23 pts
DRIVERS – latest Gold Cup standings
1. Lulham/Vermeulen/King 106 pts
2. Al Zubair/Klingmann/Tuck 90 pts
3. Gachet/Rougier/Kell 84 pts
4. Foster/Barr/Buncombe
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