BENT Viscaal, Dylan Young and Berkay Besler all climbed to the top of the podium yesterday following their respective races held in support of the FIA WEC Bapco 8 Hours of Bahrain at Bahrain International Circuit (BIC) in Sakhir.
Viscaal and Young took a win apiece in the weekend’s final two sprints of the MRF Challenge while Besler won the last race of the Porsche Sprint Challenge Middle East.
Both series were held as part of the support programme of the World Endurance Championship (WEC).
Viscaal scored his second victory of the round after taking race three in the MRF Challenge. He was on the winning end of a tough battle with pole-sitter David Schumacher, from whom he snatched the lead on lap one.
The Dutch youngster did well to hold on to the advantage from there, taking the chequered flag by a narrow margin of only 0.765 seconds over Schumacher. Viscaal completed the 10-lap sprint in 20 minutes 16.541 seconds.
Indian-American Yuven Sundaramoorthy finished third 6.702s from first place.
In race four, Young powered to a fine victory to cap the weekend’s single-seater action. The Australian had a good start, taking the lead on the first lap after starting on the front row alongside pole man Michelangelo Amendola.
He went on to lead the rest of the way and secure victory in 20:27.236.
Manaf Hijjawi of Jordan was the runner-up, 0.835 seconds behind, while Schumacher was third, 2.574s back to cap a solid round in Bahrain where he stepped onto the podium in each of the MRF’s four races.
Challenge
The MRF Challenge now heads to its final meeting of the season at Madras Motor Race Track in Chennai, India, in February.
In the Porsche Sprint Challenge, Besler of Turkey capped an exciting season-opening weekend by winning the third and final race.
Besler claimed his first win of the new campaign with a comfortable 8.858-second gap ahead of German runner-up Leon Koehler, who enjoyed an impressive opening meeting at “The Home of Motorsport in the Middle East”.
Koehler’s finish earned him his third successive podium.
Saul Hack from South Africa came third, 9.171s behind the victor.
All three top-placers were competing in the Pro class.
The ProAm category was clinched by Christoffer Bergstroem of Sweden while the Am class was won by Shaikh Jaber Al Khalifa of Bahrain.
The Porsche Sprint Challenge Middle East now heads to the second of five rounds in its 2019-2020 season, to be held in January in Dubai