Saudi Arabian drivers Raed Abu Zinadh, Prince Mohammed F. A Al-Saud and Abdulaziz Bin Laden were the stars of the fourth round of the Actionha Saudi Racing Festival, in association with MBC Action, which took place at the Reem International Circuit in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia on Thursday afternoon (February 17^th).

After practice sessions on Wednesday and further practice and qualifying on Thursday morning, the Reem Club Bikes race preceded the Saudi Formula Race and the Saudi Radical Championship encounter. Vaughn Gittin Junior, the American Formula Drifting World Champion, entertained the estimated crowd of 15,000 people who had packed into the Reem circuit, with a series of on-track demonstrations arranged by Saudi Arabia’s Ford importer Al-Jazira Vehicles. There was a superb atmosphere throughout the day’s racing programme.

The Saudi Radicals Championship is the most popular series of its kind in the Middle East and has already attracted 21 registered drivers. The GR8 team’s Faisal Shaker held a 10-point advantage over Bandar Alireza of the Saudi Falcons team before the day’s fourth round in the 1500cc category.

Despite qualifying in pole position for the 18-lap race, Alireza was unable to stop Saudi Falcons team-mate Raed Abu Zinadh from taking his first win of the season. Alireza finished second overall, six seconds behind, to maintain his title challenge and Saeed Al-Mouri eventually finished third after fighting his way back from a first-lap melee which saw him slip to seventh overall.

Saud Bin Turki of the MR Team finished fourth overall and Faisal Shaker had to settle for fifth position. Lebanon’s Doumit Bou Doumit set the fastest lap of the race and finished sixth overall.

Jordan’s Saher Fataftah held a three-point advantage over Saudi Arabia’s Abdullah Al-Gain in the 1340cc class in his Sigma before the day’s race. But victory in the smaller-engined class on the day fell to Abdullah Al-Gain of the GR8 team. He was classified seventh of the Radical runners. Mohammed Bin Fahad completed the race in eighth, Osama Shaker was ninth and Prince Khaled Bin Alwaleed rounded off the top-10. Fataytah finished 11^th overall and third of the smaller-class runners.

Yazan Hamadeh held a 10-point advantage in the Saudi Formula Championship over Saudi Falcons team-mate Prince Mohammed Al-Saud before today’s 12-lap race, but Al-Saud surged into contention for the title with a convincing victory in the Formula race. The Saudi eventually reached the chequered flag well clear of Abdulrahman Bin Saad of the Saudi Oger team and Abdullah Bamogaddam of the Saudi Falcons team. Hamadeh had been running strongly in the top three until he spun out of contention on the ninth lap after a close duel with Bamogaddam.

Sulaiman Al-Saheel of the GR8 team finished fourth, Mohammed Al-Orabi was fifth and Jalal Al-Sadi, Faisal Al-Kabbani and Hamadeh completed the finishers. Sultan Kulo was a non-starter after hitting trouble before the official race start.

Abdulaziz Bin Laden of the Saudi Falcons team won his fourth successive round of the Reem Club Bikes Championship and has now taken a maximum 100 points from four race starts. He finished 1.32s in front of Muthanna Abu Ziab, who maintained second position in the points’ standings. Ibrahim Al-Sharidah of the BMW Racing team rounded off the podium places and Ahmed Al-Lanjawe and Cobra Racing’s Stuart Gorzelak were fourth and fifth overall.

Eleven riders finished the race, with Khaled Al-Hosein, Jasser Al-Jasser, Sultan Manif, Abdulattif Al-Rabia, J.P. and Abdullah Al-Rashed rounding off the day’s race finishers.