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Ireland’s Ryan Cullen has secured back to back race wins in the penultimate round of Season 8 of the Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge Middle East at the Bahrain International Circuit (BIC) to extend his lead in the drivers’ championship.

Cullen crossed the line 0.555 seconds ahead of Britain’s Tom Oliphant in second and third placed Dylan Pereira of Luxemburg.

The win is monumental for the Irishman. It sees Cullen take a sizable step forward and potentially unstoppable momentum towards claiming his first driver title in the region’s most professional and competitive series. With only two races of Round 6 remaining Cullen (238 pts) is now 33 points clear of closest rival Frijns (205 pts) in second and Oliphant (198 pts) in third, 40 points behind the leader.

For Cullen the textbook double victory has set up the mouth-watering prospect of clinching a maiden title on the ultimate stage as the final round of the Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge Middle East will support the showpiece Formula 1 Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix, April 15-16th 2017.

Speaking after the race win Cullen said: “That was one of the closest races this season. It was a good clean race and I definitely enjoyed the win. I managed to open up a small gap early on but started to make a few mistakes. Fortunately they weren’t big ones and each time Tom Oliphant put the pressure on behind me, I pushed even more and managed to keep the gap in front. I don’t know where this leaves me on points after this weekend but that doesn’t mean anything to me, I want to keep pushing and aim to finish my season with two race wins next round!”

On a second successive day of racing the drivers were met with untypical overcast and blustery conditions but it did little to dampen the excitement or speed as drivers took to the shortened Oasis configuration circuit measuring 2.55KM.

Again qualifying proved critical and a massive factor in the overall race result as Cullen took full advantage of his pole position. The opening race of Round 5 had highlighted that the short technical circuit offered few genuine opportunities for overtaking so drivers were fully committed in the qualifying session.

Two days in a row Cullen had to immediately turn his attacking exploits in qualifying into defence from literally the first corner of the race. Oliphant who was desperately seeking his first win relentlessly pursued the Irishman and exerted as much pressure as possible from the first lap to the last. But to no avail.

Over 20 laps of racing on the limit the front two could not be separated with Cullen edging it. The gap remained under a second throughout in a perfect advertisement for the Porsche series. It was a similar theme across the field as no driver could pull away from those in front or behind.

Second placed Oliphant added: “There hasn’t been much between myself and Cullen all weekend. I knew after qualifying today that it was going to be hard to get past him but I think I put him under enough pressure, tried to force a mistake but he defended well and I couldn’t find the right opportunity to get past. It was a tough race and there wasn’t ever any more than a couple of tenths of a second between us, overall it’s a good result for me and a great end to the weekend.

“From the very start of the season we have had our issues and things we have had to work on but we came over here to the Middle East to learn and improve, and this has definitely been the case and now I feel like I am really on the pace as I head back to Europe to compete in the Porsche Carrera Cup Great Britain Championship. I now have lots of confidence going back to Brands Hatch in the UK at the end of the month.”

The tussle between Pereira who finished in third and Charlie Frijns in fourth was equally enthralling, with Pereira just holding onto his slim lead having benefitted from a better start than the Qatar-based driver. The top six places were completed by rookie driver from Oman Al Faisal Al Zubair in fifth and Saudi Arabia’s Bandar Alesayi sixth. The duo will now continue their battle for the silver category into the final round with only a point between them.

The final round of the Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge Middle East takes place on Saturday 15th April and Sunday 16th April in Bahrain as part of the official weekend line-up for the .

Name Country Category Points
1st Ryan Cullen IRE Gold 238
2nd Charlie Frijns QAT Gold 205
3rd Tom Oliphant GBR Gold 198
4th Dylan Pereira LUX Gold 169
5th Bander Alesayi KSA Silver 157
6th Al Faisal Al Zubair OMN Silver 156


GCC Rookie Championship standings after Round 5 of 6– Season 8

Name Country Category Points
1st Al Faisal Al Zubair OMA Silver 156
2nd Isa S. Al Khalifa BAH Bronze 100
3rd Isa A. Al Khalifa BAH Silver 74
4th Mohammad Al Saud KSA Bronze 36