Drift UAE Round 4
Smoke and sideways action at the Dubai Autodrome
By Shahzad Sheikh
It’s the most spectacular, exciting and fastest growing form of motorsport in the region right now, and if you haven’t been to a round of Drift UAE so far, then you are missing out!
The fourth round was held yesterday at the Dubai Autodrome utilising part of the smaller oval circuit encompassing three high-speed turns with a downhill section midway that caught out some of the drivers.
There was a stock and modified category, plus of course the fiercely competitive Pro category being contested by teams from across the region.
The Pro category was won by Salman Abduallah from Bahrain who seemed slightly surprised by his victory, possibly because this was his first time competing in Pro Drift, although having said that, he did also win the Modified class and was consistently good throughout the day. So well done Abduallah!
Admittedly though, we were surprised too, as UAE champ Ahmed Alamri appeared to have victory in the bag in his sensational little Toyota 86 after comprehensively beating the championship leading Saudi Al Jazirah Ford Racing team drivers into a distant third and fourth positions.
The top eight in the pro category go at it in an all-out ‘Twin Drift’ battle and it was a mistake and a spin in the last battle that appeared to cost Alamri first place.
Nonetheless, having experienced a troubled start to the season, including technical issues that drastically reduced his practice time in this edition, Alamri and his fans were ecstatic at the solid comeback his Toyota Emirates Drift Team is demonstrating.
With three rounds still to go, the favourites for the championship remain the Saudi team in the awesome Ford Mustang drift cars with Abdulhadi Al-Qahtani taking the final podium position this round.
His teammate in the sister Mustang, Muath Al-Essa took fourth and that means they still hold overall first and second positions in the championship.
Along with Abduallah, in the modified category, Faisal Al Zaabi took second and third went to Jihad Hassan.
In the stock category victory was taken somewhat astonishingly, but deservedly by Ahmed Al Rumathi in a seemingly completely standard Mercedes AMG C63, beautifully shredding some expensive rubber – a real sight to behold!
Second and third places went to Dejan Stojanovic and Murshad Al Rumathi respectively.
The next Round is tentatively set to be in Ajman on March 28th – make sure you’re there. We will be!
