Tom Oliphant and Al Faisal Al Zubair shared the top times of the two free practice sessions today as the first race weekend of the 2017/18 Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge Middle East calendar got underway.
The Brit was fastest in the first session as he completed eleven laps with a fastest time of 2:03.643, with a gap of 0.108 seconds ahead of Dutch driver Charlie Frijns and Oman’s Al Zubair a further 0.195 seconds behind. Glynn Geddie almost cracked the top three, but finished the session in fourth place, just over one second slower than Oliphant.
Al Zubair upped his game for the second session and claimed the fastest time of the day as the lap times improved, 2:03.147 was the time that took him to the top of the standings, just 0.059 seconds ahead of Oliphant. Kuwait’s Zaid Ashkanani finished the session in third place as Geddie dropped back to eighth place.
Commenting at the end of the day, Oliphant heads in to the weekend in a confident mood, “Today’s test was great, the car was mega on used tyres and I feel confident we are leading the way on those.
“On new tyres we didn’t hook it up so I’m looking forward to pushing hard in qualifying tomorrow. I think overall we have more time in us and we can challenge for pole.”
Elsewhere British driver Mark Radcliffe finished sixteenth and thirteenth, which placed him fourth and second fastest of the bronze class competitors.
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