Dubai: Ali Al Mansouri edged out Ramez Azzam to win the second round of the 2014 SWS Ramadan Challenge at Dubai Kartdrome on Monday.
After six preliminary heats, where each driver had two opportunities to score points to determine the starting grid for the final, it was Ramez Azzam who took pole position with Al Mansouri alongside side him in second. Round one winner Rami Azzam and Mohammad Al Mutawaa were on row two with Atef Al Barwani and Hussain Umid Ali on row three.
Azzam set the early pace with Al Mansouri glued to his bumper. The pair managed to edge out an early lead over Al Barwani and Al Mutawaa who worked together in tandem and pursued relentlessly.
There was just a lap time zone of just 91 seconds between the top ten. However, the leaders were edging away and midway through the race Al Mansouri pounced to snatch the lead from Azzam, where he stayed until the chequered flag on lap 12, finishing a mere 0.182 of a second clear.
Al Mutawaa managed to get by Al Barwani and with a handful of laps to go was reeling in the leaders, but there were simply not enough laps in the race for him to challenge them. His reward for the hard graft was a third-place finish and the evening’s fastest lap time.
Al Barwani held on to fourth with Saeed Al Falasi in his slipstream as they crossed the line. Anas Al Halabi was sixth, ahead of Rami Azzam in seventh, Hussain Umid Ali in eighth, Abigail Birch in ninth and Sam Zian rounding off the top ten.
Dubai schoolgirl Birch won special mention having scraped entry to the final with a fourth-place finish in the pre-final. She started from 19th on the grid but worked her way up ten places.
Elsewhere, Carsten Winter took top honours in the Masters Class ahead of Bruno De Champris in second and Adrian Jones in third. The third and penultimate round of the 2014 Dubai Kartdrome SWS Ramadan Challenge takes place on Monday night, July 14.
