In the shadow of Ferrari World, Lamborghini inflicted the first defeat of the season on the dominant Ferrari in Round 4 of the NGK UAE GT Championship.

Stuart Hall powered the Gulf Racing Lamborghini LP560 to the team’s first victory in the series, setting the fastest lap in the process of the one hour mini-enduro. The British driver survived a drive through penalty for entering the pits later than the stipulated time during the 30 laps he completed.
Hall did the one hour stint by himself after regular team mate Roald Goethe failed to make it to Abu Dhabi due to business commitments in Austria.

 Hall said: “My team mate was stuck in Austria so he said I should go for it alone and honestly it was not too bad as the weather is cool and conditions fine. We had strong pace today, the best all season. The Lamborghini was strong around Yas Marina Circuit. I know the Ferrari were penalized, but we also served a 20 seconds penalty. They did have more pace than us although we were much closer than we were in Dubai, but pace doesn’t always win as we saw today.”

Second across the line and taking top honours in the GT3 Endurance Class was Ahmad Al Harthy in the Lechner Porsche GT3, with Christian Menzel taking third in the sister car.

The hitherto dominant, AUH Motorsports prepared Ferrari with Leon Price and Rob Barff, were fourth over the finish line and second in the GTA Class.

Their run of wins came to an end after a couple of costly pit stop related infringements during the race. First they stopped outside the stipulated time window and the second penalty was for a pit time infringement.

Third in the GTA Class was the second Gulf Racing Lamborghini with Frederic Fatien and Fabien Giroix sharing duties in the cockpit, making it a good day for the Dubai Autodrome based team.

John Iossifidis and Yusif Basel shared the Aston Martin Vantage to take top honours in the GTC Class…

…ahead of the Emal Racing Porsche 968 of Ray Bignell and Graeme Hannah.

Another great weekend of racing then! Sadly the grids are still on the small side, however there is clearly a passion and a desire to be out there racing. Just looking at the spread of championships available, along with the vast number of cars that turned up to the Track Evening held on the eve of the race weekend. The trick… how to convert those people into competitive racers with an affordable and fun platform >>>