Challenging Le Mans debut for Kuwait teenager Haytham Qarajouli in Ligier European Series

The young Kuwait teenager, only just turned 18 in March earlier this year, made history on his debut as the youngest Kuwait driver to race on the hallowed 24 Hours of Le Mans track, racking up some 50 laps around the 13.6 km circuit which is composed of closed public roads and dedicated sections of a racing track, making it one of the most challenging and longest circuits in the world.

Over 20 additional cars joined the European Series at this special round from the local French JS Cup, making a grid of 40 cars overall to race as a support race right before the famous 24Hours headline event.

Haytham featured highly in free practice, locking out third fastest early on in his Ligier JS2 R, before qualifying fourth for the first of two races, and 17th for race two.

In the first race of the Ligier European Series Le Mans Heat (Friday 10 June), Haytham maintained track position and, despite pressurizing the #72 car of Millara for a spot on the famous 24 Hours of Le Mans podium, he had to settle for fourth in the final result, only 1.5 sec adrift behind the overall winner.

However, there was still an opportunity to bag a result in race two, held during the build-up to the 24 Hours of Le Mans on Saturday (11 June) morning.

Haytham was one of the biggest movers on lap one, rising from 17th to seventh to join a four-car battle for the podium, by pitting as soon as the pit-window was open was a costly gamble as the yellow zone appeared while Haytham was still in the pits. Several rivals gained chunks of time by pitting the next lap with the slow zone still in place, and even by overtaking 3 cars on the last lap, the race came to a close with the Kuwait teenager 12th overall, and only 3 sec from the winner, but as the second highest-placed full-season driver in the European Series.

Haytham remains the European Series Championship leader on 105 pts and 43pts ahead of the nearest rival going into round four at Monza, Italy on Jul 1st, thus also maintaining RLR MSport top of the team points table.

“I never expected the Ligier European Series Le Mans round to be easy and it wasn’t, it was a surreal experience driving down famous sections such as the Mulsanne Straight having watched the race only on TV for many years, never dreaming I would ever get to race on it one day” said Haytham.

“The positives we can take away from the week are that we qualified on row two of the grid for the first race on Friday, and I fought hard to keep that position to the finish.

“I was hampered by yellow flags in qualifying for race two and had to start from near the back of the JS2 R pack, but a lot of the other frontrunners were also impacted. From 17th on the grid, all I could do is run my own race and stay clean. There were a lot of incidents and I had a few scary moments myself, but I overcame them and I’m proud to have completed two races and 50 laps at Circuit de la Sarthe. The other plus is that I was the second-best full-season driver in race two and I still lead the championship going to Monza.”