The Avon Tyres British GT Championship heads to Holland and the famous Zandvoort circuit this weekend and Oman Air Motorbase will be back on track.
The track represents a new challenge for the Wrotham based team with rounds eight and nine taking place at a track that neither Amhad Al Harthy nor Michael Caine have ever driven on.
With the success ballast that the team are carrying it will be a tough challenge for the team that runs a Porsche 911 GT3R.
The pair of hour-long races on the former Dutch Grand Prix circuit is another of the highlights of the 2013 British GT season; but the Motorbase team will once more be handicapped by a major weight penalty.
All season the Oman Air Motorbase car has been carrying a 75kg weight penalty due to the championship organiser’s grading of the two drivers. However, the speed of the Porsches has attracted further penalties as the season has developed and the Motorbase car will go to Zandvoort with a massive 130kg of ballast on board: 75kg more than the championship leading Trackspeed cars.
Speaking ahead of the race team boss David Bartrum, said: “Ahmad and Michael have never been to Zandvoort before, so we are heading there blind. We are going there very disadvantaged as we are carrying the weight penalty. If we are going to consolidate our championship position or go even better; then we need to make the most of these two races and score good points in both. We’ve got two good drivers who work very well together and we’ve got a very well drilled team.
“I’ve only been to Zandvoort once and that was in 2005, we went to help run a couple of Porsches we had sold. It was early in the season and we came off the boat and it started to snow. We got to the circuit and the snow was about a foot deep. We thought we’d be going home, but they got the snow ploughs out and we went racing.”
Following free practice sessions on Friday 6 September, qualifying and round eight of the Avon Tyres British GT Championship will be on Saturday 7 September. On Sunday, there will be an un-timed warm-up session followed by round nine of the championship.
Check out this latest video from Motorbase: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=diO3vVX4oKM