Haytham Sultan Al Ali secured third place overall in only his first Formula Gulf Championship season.
The 22 year old Emirati driver dug deep to come third in the final race of the season in Dubai to secure a podium position.
Joe Ghanem, the Lebanese driver, won the championship and the Dubai-based Mohamed Al Mutawaa finished second, but it was Al Ali's day after the newcomer kept his cool to go past the Spaniard Nicolas Canal in the inaugural UAE single-seater series.
The Umm Al Quwain-based driver later said the result had exceeded his own expectation. "My goal this first season was to learn all about the car technically and try to develop my race craft as quickly as possible to be competitive," he said.
"Competing with international drivers in the series has been really helpful, as I can [now] gauge where I need to be and it makes me feel confident I can also do well Internationally in the future."
Al Ali has his roots in the karting circuit both in the UAE as well as in Europe, but was enthusiastic about making a name in the single-seater series.
"When I first heard about this championship, my first reaction was, 'yes have to do this', and my second thought was, 'how can I fund this'," he said.
"So I set about creating a marketing campaign with my team at XSport and within the year we had secured most of the race budget. It was a dream come true for me to start racing in this championship, now I need to build on what I have learned and improve even further."
Off the track, Al Ali is involved in developing road safety campaigns with police departments across the country. He uses motorsports as a tool to educate children and young adults about accident awareness. A 'UAE road safety ambassador', he encourages young people to visit the race tracks in the country to develop their skills in motorsports.
