A range of new cars and new faces failed to challenge the dominance of Karim Al Azhari and his Corvette at the latest round of the UAE GT Championship.

The race was part of the UAE National Race day at the Dubai Autodrome, which also saw action from the UAE Touring Cars and the GulfSport Radical Cup.

The hype before the weekend had been surrounding several new and improved entries to the UAE GT Championship, all hoping to pose more of a challenge to Al Azhari and the TAM Auto Engineering Corvette, which has been a country mile ahead of the competition so far this season.

But despite new cars including a Ginetta G50Z and two Porsche GT3 Cup S cars, none of the class A entrants could match the pace of the Corvette and Al Azhari once again scored an easy win. The closest challenger was the new Porsche GT3 Cup S run by Belgian team Mühlner Motorsport, but it was subsequently disqualified for running below the minimum ride height. Second place therefore went to the improved DXB Racing Dodge Viper ACR driven by Julian Griffin, while third went to Saif Al Assam in the Falcon Racing Porsche GT3.

The new Khaleji Motorsport Porsche GT3 Cup S, driven by Cabell Fisher and Tarek Elgammal, developed fuel problems and failed to finish

In the GTB Class, Martin Hope and Robert Cregan triumphed in the GulfSport Ginetta G50 HC. Paul Denby’s Porsche was second over third placed Frederic Gaillard in the DXB Racing Aston Martin Vantage.

The UAE Touring Car races were once again a three-way battle between the dominant Class 1 SEAT Leon Supercopas of Khalid Al Mutawaa (right), Jonathan Simmonds and Khaled Bin Hadher.

Race one went to Al Mutawaa despite a strong start from Simmonds in the DXB Racing car. The Brit slipped down to third and then clawed back second from Bin Hadher, but developed problems later in the race and had to retire. Both Al Mutawaa and Bin Hadher were judged to have jumped the start and were given drive through penalties. Al Mutawaa complied, but Bin Hadher did not and was subsequently disqualified, despite finishing second on track.

In race two, Al Mutawaa dominated from start to finish ahead of Simmonds, but Bin Hadher once again fell foul of the officials despite finishing in third. This promoted Martin Baerschmidt to the final podium, place in his Volkswagen Golf GTI.

In class 2, race one saw Aslam Moola’s Honda beat the Lap 57 Honda of Omran Al Owais by less than a quarter of a second, ahead of Emirati teenager Mohammed Al Mutawaa in the TAM Auto Engineering Renault Clio.

Race two saw a reversal of the top two with Al Owais triumphing over Moola, while Al Mutawaa again finished in third.

The first Radical Cup race of the weekend saw controversy when AUH Motorsports’ Jordan Grogor and Christophe Hissette were penalised for ignoring a drive through penalty following a false start. This meant that although the duo finished first and second, they were disqualified and relegated to the back of the field for race two.

This left David Field with the race one victory, ahead of Bob George in second and Henry van den Heuval in third.

Race two saw Grogor and Hissette scythe their way through the field from the back, but Hissette tangled with early leader George and the two fell down the field. Grogor took to the lead ahead of last year’s champion Bassam Kronfli and they crossed the line with George in third.

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