Abu Dhabi-Proton racing qualified sixth within its class during Thursday night’s qualifying session for the Le Mans 24-hour race.

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The result comes after three qualifying sessions on the “Le Sarthe” circuit where the team consisting of UAE Champion Khaled Al Qubaisi along with his team mates Christian Reid and Klaus Bachler, managed to set third fastest time in the first practice session Wednesday night aboard Porsche 911 RSR within LMGTE AM class. The red flag dominated all 3 sessions, resulting in session suspensions which affected the results.

On the qualifying session at Le Mans Al Qubaisi said: "As I have mentioned previously, qualifying at Le Mans isn’t as important as the main race; it’s a very long one race and the overtaking opportunities are high, we started in sixth last year and came second. We participated in three qualifying sessions, setting up fourth position in the first session; we tried to improve our position during the 2nd and 3rd session but the other teams were faster than us, pushing us down the grid to 6th place.

He added:  “We have a specific strategy this year, based on maintaining the car’s reliability and functionality throughout the race; we aim to get a good result with our eyes firmly set on the podium”.