Sixth-row start for Team WRT’S Al Harthy in 6 Hours of Fuji
Muscat - Fuji Speedway in Japan delivered a very close qualifying session on Saturday ahead of the penultimate race of the FIA World Endurance Championships season – Oman’s Ahmad al Harthy concluding the run 12th fastest.
Taking a sixth-row start for the 6 Hours of Fuji, the Team WRT squad opted to utilise two sets of tyres during the session to maximise the performance available to them – Fuji is not the most favourable of circuits for the BMW M4 LMGT3.
Following the mid-session pitstop, Al Harthy emerged to produce his quickest lap as the clock counted down but unfortunately missed out on the cut-off for progression into the top 10 Hyperpole shoot-off by little more than two-tenths of a second.
The OQ, Oman Ministry of Culture, Sports and Youth, Omantel, Experience Oman and BMW Oman supported driver was among the first to join the track as soon as the green light came on for the 12-minute session to begin. Setting a time of 1m44.981 seconds on his first lap as he started to build up speed and tyre temperature, on his first true flyer the Omani improved to 1m42.141 seconds. With five minutes of the short-sharp session to run, the Team WRT driver was on the bubble of the top 10 cut-off for progression into Hyperpole with just a couple
Fuji is one of the toughest tracks for us. In terms of our strategy, we always decided we wanted to do two flyers with two sets of tyres AHMAD AL HARTHY
of tenths of a second making the difference. He then made a swift pit stop to fit a fresh set of Goodyear tyres.
“Qualifying was the best we could do, Fuji is one of the toughest tracks for us. In terms of our strategy, we always decided we wanted to do two flyers with two sets of tyres,” said Al Harthy.
Our strategy did work for us, and we’re happy with that decision as we moved up to P12 in the end.”