Great season final of the Porsche Carrera Cup Middle East - four new champions crowned!
With Theo Oeverhaus already having won the overall title one week ago in Bahrain, four new champions in different categories were crowned at the Jeddah Corniche Circuit, the fastest street circuit worldwide.
In the first free practice, Robert de Haan was fastest, just one hundreth of a second ahead of British Porsche Supercup driver Harry King, with Colin Boenighausen from Germany in P3. Local hero Saud Al Saud from Saudi Arabia, fourth overall, also topped the ProAM and GCC categories, while Sebastian Gorga from Italy led the AM category.
In the evening, the bright lights of the street circuit at the Corniche in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, provided a great atmosphere and a brilliant setting for the second free practice. Just after the Formula 1 and then the Formula 1 Academy cars had left the track, the 16 Porsche drivers were able to take the stage and add their brilliance to the event. Again, de Haan led the time sheet ahead of King, with Janne Stiak this time in P3. Khaled Alahmadi, another Saudi driver, was on top of the ProAM and GCC categories, with Gorga again ahead in the AM category.
In qualifying, Harry King showed his class by setting the pole position for the first race on Friday night. He set a time of 2:03.571 around the street circuit, three tenths ahead of Dutchman Robert de Haan, with Colin Boenighausen from Germany in P3. Local hero Khaled Alahmadi from Saudi Arabia topped the ProAM and GCC categories, while Sebastian Gorga from Italy was fastest in the AM category. As usual with the PCCME as a support race to F1 or WEC, the second fastest lap of each driver counted for the grid of the second race on Saturday, with exactly the same result in all the top positions.
The Friday race then saw a very close fight between King and de Haan from start to finish, with the Brit managing to stay ahead of Dutchman Robert de Haan, with German Colin Boenighausen a distant third. Bashar Mardini, the reigning ProAM champion, won this class, with Saudi Arabian local hero Saud Al Saud on top of the GCC category. Sebastian Gorga from Italy secured his title in the AM class, coming first again in this category.
In the final race of the 2023/2024 season of the Porsche Carrera Cup Middle East, Harry King delivered the final show. He secured victory just hours before the start of the F1 GP in Saudi Arabia, ahead of Robert de Haan and German youngster Janne Stiak. In front of his home crowd, Khaled Alahmadi from Saudi Arabia won the ProAM and GCC categories, and UAE driver Saif Al Ameri won the AM category.
In the three championships still to be decided, the respective titles went to Soeren Spreng from Germany in the ProAM category after a great season with many category podium finishes, Saud Al Saud in the GCC category, who really enjoyed his success in front of his home crowd, and to Team GP Elite in the team championship.
Robert Lechner, Head and Promoter, was really happy:
“First of all, congratulations to all our winners and the new champions! It was great for us to be able to run our season finale in front of a huge crowd at this very special Formula 1 event. This was a fantastic platform for the series and also a great experience for our new champions to be able to celebrate in front of so many fans. I would like to take this opportunity to thank everybody for this impressive first PCCME season, from my organising crew to all the teams and competitors, our sponsors, and our partners. I hope we will be back all together in a bit more than half a year for a new season.”
Copyright: Lechner Racing