2016 Formula Gulf – Rounds 11 and 12, Yas Marina

Rounds 11 and 12, Yas Marina Circuit

The penultimate event of the 2016/17 Formula Gulf season clearly demonstrated the value of professional coaching. The outcome of driving identical cars with the exact same setup, sharing and analysing data from all of the cars, and being mentored by one of the world’s best driver coaches was that these young drivers put on a faultless display of racing skills whilst competing on a tricky 3.2kms circuit. Notably, during the course of the 10th race in their season, the gap between fastest and slowest driver was only six tenths of a second per lap.

GulfSport’s Barry Hope said “16 year old Cato Poulsen is one of the most talented drivers we have seen. Today, he took pole, won two races and beat the lap record which had stood for over three years. Having said that, he had to work very hard to beat Quka (Gulhuseyn Abdullayev) who is Azerbaijan’s best young racer. We are very pleased to have Campos Racing entrusting us with his development. Cato will again travel from Denmark for the last round on 1st April in Dubai and I’m sure that Quka will want to leave the series with some more trophies to show his supporters in Baku”.

The Yas event saw the return of the ever popular Saeed Bintouq after enjoying two seasons driving for the Citroen Abu Dhabi Racing Team in the FIA Middle East Rally Championship. Bintouq was on the pace straight away with a 3rd place trophy in his first comeback single seater race.

There is an interesting scrap for the Vice Champion title between Dubai based Italian Guilio Peroni, Saudi’s Omar Gazzaz and Quka who missed the first six rounds. Gazzaz made a small mistake with his braking in the first race which led to a DNF, and then Peroni put in a stunning performance to get on the podium in the second race to move himself into that important second position.

So there is quite a bit of pressure on these dedicated young drivers to put on their best performance at the last event of the season on 1st April where a new Formula Gulf Champion will be crowned and win an F3 test with Campos Racing in Spain.