Oman's Al Harthy geared up for the 24 Hours of Le Mans
Muscat – Global motorsport's greatest and most challenging race, the 24 Hours of Le Mans at the famous Circuit de la Sarthe in France, is mere days away for Oman's Ahmad al Harthy, who intends to mount a major bid for silverware with teammates Valentino Rossi and Kelvin van der Linde.
Marking the halfway stage of the FIA World Endurance Championship season, round four of the 2025 campaign, this year's visit to Le Mans – the race begins on Saturday – will be Al Harthy's third attempt at the endurance racing classic, where he is a past podium finisher.
Memorably, of course, he made history on his 24 Hours of Le Mans debut back in 2023 when racing to a sensational second place result in the then GTE Am class – success which he happily dedicated to His Majesty Sultan Haitham bin Tariq.
'Le Mans is always the biggest event of the year, not just in WEC but in motorsport as a whole, and it truly is an incredible honour to again represent Oman at such a prestigious, famous and historic race,' said Al Harthy.
'It was the proudest moment of my career to climb the podium in the 24 Hours of Le Mans a couple of years ago on my debut in the race, truly an amazing moment to see the Omani flag fly.
'We're working as hard as we can to be back on the podium this weekend, and with Vale and Kelvin, we're pushing as hard as ever to prepare as strongly as possible for the race. It's going to be an amazing week building up to the race, I can't wait to get started.'
Now competing in LMGT3, the successor to GTE, the Omani's second season with Team WRT in the No.46 BMW M4 LMGT3 has been impacted by some misfortune but there has been celebration as well, thanks a fantastic second place – a mere 0.3 seconds shy of victory – at Imola in Italy in April.
Climbing to sixth in the LMGT3 standings at that point, having had to settle for 11th place during the season-opening event at Lusail in Qatar, a podium bid last time out at Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium ultimately became ninth due to a pit-lane speed limiter glitch which resulted in a luckless penalty.
While there have been frustrations with some of the misfortune, the overall pace and performance across qualifying and race conditions from the Team WRT entry has been outstanding and Al Harthy himself has been extremely satisfied with the level of his own personal performance thus far.
Supported as always by OQ Group, Sohar International, Omantel, Oman LNG, BMW Oman, Oman Ministry of Culture, Sports and Youth and Experience Oman, Al Harthy is very much looking forward to welcoming plenty of key partners to the 93rd staging of the 24 Hours of Le Mans later this week.
This year's race entry features a combined total of 62 cars across the Hypercar, LMP2 and LMGT3 classes, with 24 in LMGT3 alone – the biggest class of the three. The No.46 BMW LMGT3 will be battling competition from the likes of Aston Martin, Corvette, Ferrari, Ford, Lexus, Mercedes-AMG and Porsche. The 24 Hours of Le Mans start at 16.00 local time.
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