Batelco boys win again

THE Batelco Racing team was triumphant of the Dubai Kartdrome Endurance Championship’s Round Two, following similar success in Round One held in February.

The race took place last weekend at the Dubai Autodrome Circuit with Batelco Racing represented by Mohammed Matar, Ramez Azzam and Saeed Al Muhairi who successfully completed the 600 laps challenge more than 30 seconds ahead of the nearest challenger.

A total of 29 teams lined up for the famous Le Mans-style running start of the race on the 1.245km Switchback Circuit at Dubai Kartdrome.  The 600 laps endurance challenge started at 7pm on Friday and took almost 13 hours to finish by Saturday morning.

Ramez Azzam got Batelco Racing off to a great start by topping timing screens during qualifying with a blazing lap time of 1:10.620, just 0.030 seconds ahead of arch-rivals CG Racing Pro and 0.051 seconds ahead of Bin Drai Karting Team in third.

CG Racing Pro got the jump on the pole sitter on the opening lap, but it only took a few trips around the track for Azzam to regain the lead for Batelco.  From there it was tight race between the two heavyweight teams, with Bin Drai Karting Team and ZOOM Racing Team intermittently challenging for the front as well.

Methodical strategy and relentless pace throughout the night kept Batelco Racing just out of reach of rival teams. Al Mehairi wrapped up the 600th lap and crossed the finish line 31.650 seconds ahead of Alban Varutti of CG Racing Pro.

The overall win gave Batelco Racing its second Pro Class victory in a row, with CG Racing Pro having to settle for second place both times and Bin Drai Karting Team also repeating its third place position on the Pro podium.

Team representative Ali Abbas of Batelco Racing said: “The team did a fantastic job. The crew and drivers followed the strategy from the beginning. We worked hard and pushed and the strategy worked really nice for us.

The championship, run since 2005, attracts teams from around the world. Each round of karting is as tough as it gets, requiring tremendous stamina, speed, concentration and team work simply to finish a race, which can take 12 or 24 continuous hours.

The championship is run over four rounds, which each round having a different objective. Round One was 12 hours of endurance racing and Round Two went for 600 laps. Round 3, set for October is run for 700km. Round Four is the grand finale, set for December, pushing teams for a gruelling 24 hours on track.