Motorsport: Oman's Al Faisal satisfied with Porsche Super Cup qualifying performance in Hungary

Mogyorod: Oman’s Al Faisal Al Zubair achieved another excellent qualifying performance for the sixth round of the Porsche Mobil 1 Super Cup in hot, dry conditions at the Hungaroring in Hungary on Saturday afternoon.
The Lechner Racing Middle East team driver will line-up for Sunday’s race in 12th position amongst the 30 entrants, after a qualifying session on the 4.381km circuit that was won by Germany’s Michael Ammermuller with a late lap of one minute and 46.926 seconds.
Al Zubair managed to leap into 12th place with a lap of one minute and 47.915 seconds with just two minutes of the frantic session remaining.
The Omani actually held eighth after the first 10 minutes of the half-hour session with a lap of one minute and 48.374 seconds, before pitting for a fresh tyre change after four laps and slipping out of the top 10.
The majority of the field remained in the pits until the final nine minutes, as Daniel Cammish retained provisional pole for the first time with a lap of one minute and 47.370 seconds.
Matt Campbell moved into second place with a time of 1:47.460 with five minutes remaining and both he and Cammish improved still further. But their times were eclipsed by Ammermuller, who surged to the top of the leader board with a time of 1:47.022 and then went even faster late on to claim his second pole of the season.
“It was really good today,” said an upbeat FZ Racing’s Al Faisal. “I think we managed the tyres well to get the lap time and the position was good. On one of the laps I went a bit off, but the lap afterwards was okay and faster and I am very satisfied with the 12th position today.”
Ammermuller was the pacesetter in Friday’s free practice session, the German carding a fastest lap of 1:48.051, but the revelation of the stint was Al Zubair.
The Omani rookie mixed it with the leading group and set the sixth quickest lap of 1:48.700 during his 19 laps on the circuit – a mere 0.649 seconds off his teammate’s fastest time. Thirty cars had taken to the circuit during that session as well.
“It was a good practice session for me,” enthused Al Zubair. “But, to be honest, I have to say that I was away on fresh tyres and that helped a lot. I had only one reasonable lap and I was held up on another try.”
The 14-lap sixth round of the Porsche Mobil 1 Super Cup takes centre stage on the Hungaroring from 1130hrs on Sunday.