Saturday 08 / November / 2025
Muscat: FIA World Endurance Championship front-runner Ahmad Al Harthy will begin today’s final race of the season, the Bapco Energies 8 Hours of Bahrain, from ninth on the grid as he and BMW M4 LMGT3 team-mates Valentino Rossi and Kelvin van der Linde chase their third podium result of 2025.
Oman’s Al Harthy, delighted to be back racing in the Middle East this weekend for the first time since the FIA WEC curtain-raiser in Qatar in February, had the duty of qualifying the No.46 Team WRT car in the main qualifying session on Friday, 7th November, and produced an excellent showing.
After lapping Bahrain International Circuit with the seventh best time in the opening 12-minute run, just half a second away from the top of the timesheets, the OQ Group, Sohar International, Omantel, Oman LNG, BMW Oman, Oman Ministry of Culture, Sports and Youth and Experience Oman backed racer progressed the car to Hyperpole where team-mate Rossi ended that session ninth fastest.
Track action in Sakhir began with free practice on Thursday, 6th November, where the squad posted the fourth quickest time in session one before ending a fraction outside the top 10 in the second period. Making final adjustments to race set-up in free practice three on Friday morning, the team was 12th in session ahead of the all-important qualifying.
Al Harthy strapped himself into the car for the first 12-minute run and built his speed over the first couple of laps before pumping in his first true flyer, a time of 2m03.893 seconds, which put him second fastest on the timesheets briefly before slipping down the order as times tumbled.
On his next lap the Omani bettered his previous time with a lap of 2m03.534 seconds to move into fifth position, less than a couple of tenths of a second shy of the top two. With no improvement possible the next time around, Al Harthy instead pitted into the final minute and ultimately ended with the seventh fastest time – duly qualifying the No.46 car for the decisive Hyperpole.
Rossi took the subsequent session and produced a time of 2m09.899 seconds with his first effort, before improving to a lap of 2m03.067 seconds the next time around which placed him fourth. Edged back to ninth with just a couple of minutes to go, the Italian wasn’t able to improve further and so qualified the BMW at the head of row five of the grid for the last race of the season.
Ahmad Al Harthy said: “I’m really happy with the performance we had in qualifying, to put the car into Hyperpole was the objective and we achieved that. My qualifying was great and Vale did a great job, it’s always very competitive in Hyperpole so to start P9 for an eight-hour race is a good way to start. We know that anything can happen in such a long race, we’re looking at following our own strategy and focusing on our own performance more than anything else. Hopefully we can end the year with a good race.”
The final race of the FIA World Endurance Championship, the Bapco Energies 8 Hours of Bahrain, will begin at 14.00 local time today. Live timing and coverage will be available at www.fiawec.com
2025 FIA WEC LMGT3 Driver Standings (after Rd7):
1st Riccardo Pera / Richard Lietz / Ryan Hardwick, 105pts
2nd Alessio Rovera / Francois Heriau / Simon Mann, 94pts
3rd Charlie Eastwood / Rui Andrade / Tom van Rompuy, 81pts
8th Ahmad Al Harthy / Valentino Rossi / Kelvin van der Linde, 52pts
2025 FIA WEC LMGT3 Team Standings (after Rd7):
1st Manthey 1st Phorm (Porsche 911 GT3 R LMGT3), 105pts
2nd Vista AF Corse (Ferrari 296 LMGT3), 94pts
3rd TF Sport (Corvette Z06 LMGT3.R), 81pts
8th Team WRT (BMW M4 LMGT3), 52pts
