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BATELCO Drag 965 Racing tandem Mohammed Mattar and Khalid Alsaie eked out a narrow victory on Saturday night in the first round of the 2016/2017 Bahrain Endurance SWS Championship (BESWS) at Bahrain International Karting Circuit (BIKC) in Sakhir.
The star pairing teamed up to win the opening three-hour challenge of the series, which featured a packed grid of 31 teams. Mattar and Alsaie captured the chequered flag just 0.153 seconds ahead of sister squad Batelco Drag 965 Mechanics, who were made up of Ali Baslar and Abdulla Buhindi. Zain dangerous clinched the final spot on the overall podium.
Their duo of Khalid Abdulla and Essa Al Kooheji finished 4.115s of the winners’ pace. An elated Mattar said: “Khalid and I are very happy to have won. There was plenty of good competition and it was very tough. It was the first time he had such a big field and the first time we raced with the new rules of kart rotation.
In the end, my teammate and I had a good strategy and we managed to get the win.” All three leading teams completed 127 laps on the night but Batelco Racing were the quickest of the field. They had as started rm pole position, after registering a best lap in qualifying of one minute 12.279 seconds just 0.127s uicer than the Mechanics. Racing was held along BIKC’s 1.414-kilometre Commission International de Karting (CIK) track.
Teams were out on track in identical 390cc RT9 Sodikarts. Aside from taking the overall victory, Mattar and Alsaie were also triumphant in the race’s Pro class. Baslar and Buhindi were then also winners in the Nations class, while BBK Racing’s Faisal Al Shafei and Osama Albuflasa were the inners in the Corporate category.
Completing the Pro class podium were Zain Racing’s Raed Raffii and Khalifa Al Yaqoobi in second, and Al Najma Karting Team’s Ahmed Ebrahim and Mohammed Ameen in third. Meanwhile, Zain Dangerous’ Abdulla and Al Kooheji added to their overall podium accomplishment with second place in the Nations’ category.
Behind them were Batelco Drag 965 Juniors drivers Rashid Al Muammari and Hussain Hasan. In the Corporate class, winners BBK were followed by Omantel Ozone’s Mohammed Al Kabani and Mazin Al Salmi.
Third place went to BBK’s sister team BBK Online, who were composed of Nasser Al Alawi, Hamad Mattar and Ahmed Naqi.
“Overall, it was a great day for our Batelco Drag 965 teams,” Mattar added. “First and second overall and then first and third in the Nations is quite impressive. “We thank our supporters and we hope we can perform even better in the next round and get another win for the team.”
The second round of the BESWS will be another three-hour race on December 3, while the championship finale i e a hour event taking place January 27 and 28 next year.
