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Endurance event at Dubai Autodrome

All ingredients are in place for another intriguing contest, with 32 teams set to do battle for top honours in three categories.

Dubai Kartdrome this weekend hosts the third round of the 2014 Endurance Championship driven by MINI. It would also be the 10th anniversary season of Dubai Autodrome, the UAE’s first motor racing complex, a Press release said.

Over the past decade the Endurance Championship at the Kartdrome has been a mainstay of Dubai’s prestigious sporting calendar, delivering some epic contests which are now part of local leisure karting folklore. In keeping with tradition, all ingredients are in place for another intriguing contest, with 32 teams set to do battle for top honours in three categories — Pro, Corporate and Nations — with several contenders for the big prize.

Reigning champions CG Racing are once again the team to beat in all categories, having raised the bar over the past few years and along the way making history by being the first team to win all three categories in one season. Once again as the champions they will be the squad to beat. They lie second by a mere 10 points in the Pro Category with CG Racing Pro spearheaded by former karting world champion David Terrien along with Rami Azzam and Piers Pakenham-Walsh on duty. With their CG Racing 1 outfit they top the Corporate Category and lie second Nations Cup standings — nevertheless another treble title haul is still very much in their sights.

After a one year sabbatical from the UAE based series, Bahraini team Batelco returned for the 2014 season and immediately made their mark with victory in Round 1 in February, which they followed up with another win in Round 2 in May. Mohammad Al Mattar, Alban Varutti and Ramez Azzam — former SWS Endurance World Champions — are a formidable line-up who know their way to the top step of the podium and can be expected to set the pace as they aspire for a hat trick of wins in the series.

Dubai-5 lie third in the Pro Championship standings with the all Emirati line-up of Ali Al Mansoori, Atef Al Barwani and Haytham Sultan who are perennial front runners at the Kartdrome, and on their day they are quite capable of upsetting the form book.

Dubai Falcon Racing Team, consisting of Shaikh Hasher Al Maktoum, Saeed Al Mehairi and Nacho Girona who are also no strangers to the Kartdrome podium and will be targeting outright victory in Round 3 so as to keep themselves in contention for the title, which in all likelihood will be decided at the season finale at the flagship Kartdrome 24 Hours in late November.

Ahead of the race weekend the Kartdrome has been a hive of activity for teams training and fine tuning their race pace, and apart from the above-mentioned favourites there are several teams quite capable of defying the odds.

Among these are the likes of Speedsters, Blacklist, Timeless Events Racing, ENOC Racers and MINI Dubai along with a number of ‘unknown quantities’ such as the all French Stinger Racing.

In the Corporate Category the title race is fierce and extremely close with CG Racing 1 and Team Emirates, with a win apiece and separated by five points, set to slug it out again this weekend with the likes of Lukoil Racing Team, CG Racing 2 and Fly Emirates targeting a podium come Saturday morning.