The clock’s ticking as another round of tough competition and intense heat creeps up on the Dubai Autodrome from the 24th to 26th January. Under the Chevrolet Motorsport sponsorship banner, the fourth round of the Lumina CSV Middle East Championship will be hitting the Grand Racing festival this month. Fans will get to see all 19 drivers battle it out on the tarmac for a grand prize which could see one lucky winner spend a day trial and testing a V8 supercar alongside the Gary Rogers Motorsport team. The BIC will cover all travel and accommodation expenses in Australia, where they will get the chance to participate in the Australian V8 Supercar Championship should they give a top performance.

The Championship first kicked off at the BIC, where the first round of the Lumina CSV sidelined the V8 “Desert 400” round last November, whilst the Dubai Autodrome hosted rounds two and three. Over these last six racers the championship has already seen fierce competition between three key drivers including Saudi Abdul Aziz Al Yaeesh (won three races), Bahrain’s Fahad Al Musalam (won two racers) and defending champion Tarek ElGammal who has one race under his belt.

Topping the results so far is Bahraini Fahad Al Musalam, driving for the Lechner Racing Bahrain team and currently carrying 113 points. Saudi Abdul Aziz Al Yaeesh follows behind with 96 points and to complete the top three is Bahrain’s Shaikh Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa with 67 points. The Championship has also seen one woman’s participation, Emirati Marwa Al Eifa, as well as participants from all across the world including Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Austria, Australia, France and Holland.

Each round consists of free-trials, qualifiers and two races. The qualifiers determine where drivers start on the grid in the Lumina CSV support races for Grand Racingfirst race, whilst the first race result determines the grid line-up for the second race. First place receives 20 points, whilst second gets 18, third receives 16 and so on until sixth place gets 10 points and the remaining positions receive one. The Championship winner is determined by adding up their best 10 race results. The owner of the fastest lap for every race receives one additional point, as does first place in each round.

The last two rounds will find the Championship back on Bahraini soils, at the BIC, with the last round taking place alongside the Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix from the 4th to the 6th of April, 2008.

The positions so far:
1. Fahad Al Musalam   113 points
2. Abdul Aziz Al Yaeesh   96 points
3. Shaikh Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa 67 points
4. Ahmed Hamada   65 points
5. Raed Raffii    58 points
6. Fahad Hizam   50 points
7. Tarek ElGammal   50 points
8. Fawaz Al Gosaibi   47 points
9. Adel Shaji    46 points
10. Raed Charawi    40 points
11. Bandar Al Silmy   37 points
12. Helmut Fleischmann  34 pointsLumina CSV drivers for Grand Racing
13. Jacques Levet   30 points
14. Husam Al-Saleh   27 points
15. Marwa Al Eifa   14 points
16. Sherif Al Sakkaf   14 points
17. Christophe Mariot  12 points
18. Jaap W. Vaandrager  6 points

Team order following the third round:
1. Lechner Racing Bahrain   110 points
2. UMA Motorsports P1 AFR 106 points
3. Peak Performance   67 points
4. AFI     64 points
5. ERT     62 points
6. RFC Team    54 points
7. Castrol Racing Team  49 points
8. Al Gosaibi Travel Team  47 points
9. National Motors   46 points
10. Team France   42 points
11. Balubaid Racing Team  37 points

Report and stats supplied by Lumina CSV promoters