Race car driving might seem like an unusual hobby for a doctor of emergency medicine, but Ahmed Shahrabani does not see it that way. In fact, he considers it quite safe.
“There are crashes, but the health and safety standards now compared to 20 or 30 years ago are very different,” the Omani medic told The National.
“Your neck is locked in. Your helmet is locked. You can’t turn your head too much. There are pretty robust roll cages.”
He now spends many of his weekends racing classic Minis, which he considers an escape from his busy life juggling his business and his work as a doctor.
Mr Shahrabani, the son of a medic, was born and grew up in Oman, which he still considers home. However, he has lived in England since moving there to study medicine.
He qualified as a doctor in 2014 but moved away from the profession for a time after co-founding Locum’s Nest, a platform that matches doctors with NHS trusts for temporary shifts. He returned to medical practice during the Covid-19 pandemic, where he met the man who introduced him to Mini racing.
“The other thing I did in Covid was start my master's in global health and epidemiology at King’s College. Through that I met Ahmed Al Harthy, who is an Omani GT3 race car driver, a Le Mans 24 Hours podium finisher.
“We worked on a proposal to try and do a public health campaign to reduce childhood obesity and the prevalence of diabetes in Oman,” he said.
Covid then became all-encompassing, so they put the idea on hold but stayed in touch. Mr Al Harthy invited him to a few GT3 races and Mr Shahrabani realised how much he enjoyed the sport.
“I thought I really like this. And I like physics and I think I’m a good driver. So following that I did my racing licence here in the UK, passed, and then started racing historic Minis,” he said. He is now the only Omani-flagged historic Mini racer in the championship and races to raise money for his NHS trust.
“I have been racing under the Omani flag and this whole season we finished on the podium every race,” he said. “The racing is my form of escapism and it’s actually becoming more of a medium to raise awareness about a few things.”
The driving is “very pure”, he said, with next to no electronics and very little difference in horsepower between the cars. It is something he would like to develop, perhaps converting his national licence to an international one, and racing on some of the European circuits.
“Beyond the Minis, it would be being a test driver for other mediums of racing and see where we go from there. But yes, step by step,” he said.
For now, most of his time is spent on Locum’s Nest. And when he is not racing at the weekends, he does shifts at the hospital.
“Doctoring is very pure. I can only see one patient at a time. And it’s almost like meditating in a really messed up way. Someone has a problem and needs my help. I may have a solution and I want to help, so it’s a good fit,” he said.
He cannot see himself moving away from it entirely, but could perhaps one day find a way to merge both interests, he said.
“I know a couple of people I used to train with who are now trauma surgeons but racing doctors, so they’re at the circuits at the weekend. That also keeps up your licence. So that could be a natural progression of both to be a trackside doctor.”
Dubai Bling season three
Cast: Loujain Adada, Zeina Khoury, Farhana Bodi, Ebraheem Al Samadi, Mona Kattan, and couples Safa & Fahad Siddiqui and DJ Bliss & Danya Mohammed
Rating: 1/5
Veere di Wedding
Dir: Shashanka Ghosh
Starring: Kareena Kapoo-Khan, Sonam Kapoor, Swara Bhaskar and Shikha Talsania
Verdict: 4 Stars
FIXTURES
Thu Mar 15 – West Indies v Afghanistan, UAE v Scotland
Fri Mar 16 – Ireland v Zimbabwe
Sun Mar 18 – Ireland v Scotland
Mon Mar 19 – West Indies v Zimbabwe
Tue Mar 20 – UAE v Afghanistan
Wed Mar 21 – West Indies v Scotland
Thu Mar 22 – UAE v Zimbabwe
Fri Mar 23 – Ireland v Afghanistan
The top two teams qualify for the World Cup
Classification matches
The top-placed side out of Papua New Guinea, Hong Kong or Nepal will be granted one-day international status. UAE and Scotland have already won ODI status, having qualified for the Super Six.
Thu Mar 15 – Netherlands v Hong Kong, PNG v Nepal
Sat Mar 17 – 7th-8th place playoff, 9th-10th place playoff
The White Lotus: Season three
Creator: Mike White
Starring: Walton Goggins, Jason Isaacs, Natasha Rothwell
Rating: 4.5/5
Benefits of first-time home buyers' scheme
- Priority access to new homes from participating developers
- Discounts on sales price of off-plan units
- Flexible payment plans from developers
- Mortgages with better interest rates, faster approval times and reduced fees
- DLD registration fee can be paid through banks or credit cards at zero interest rates
The Birkin bag is made by Hermès.
It is named after actress and singer Jane Birkin
Noone from Hermès will go on record to say how much a new Birkin costs, how long one would have to wait to get one, and how many bags are actually made each year.
Ruwais timeline
1971 Abu Dhabi National Oil Company established
1980 Ruwais Housing Complex built, located 10 kilometres away from industrial plants
1982 120,000 bpd capacity Ruwais refinery complex officially inaugurated by the founder of the UAE Sheikh Zayed
1984 Second phase of Ruwais Housing Complex built. Today the 7,000-unit complex houses some 24,000 people.
1985 The refinery is expanded with the commissioning of a 27,000 b/d hydro cracker complex
2009 Plans announced to build $1.2 billion fertilizer plant in Ruwais, producing urea
2010 Adnoc awards $10bn contracts for expansion of Ruwais refinery, to double capacity from 415,000 bpd
2014 Ruwais 261-outlet shopping mall opens
2014 Production starts at newly expanded Ruwais refinery, providing jet fuel and diesel and allowing the UAE to be self-sufficient for petrol supplies
2014 Etihad Rail begins transportation of sulphur from Shah and Habshan to Ruwais for export
2017 Aldar Academies to operate Adnoc’s schools including in Ruwais from September. Eight schools operate in total within the housing complex.
2018 Adnoc announces plans to invest $3.1 billion on upgrading its Ruwais refinery
2018 NMC Healthcare selected to manage operations of Ruwais Hospital
2018 Adnoc announces new downstream strategy at event in Abu Dhabi on May 13
Source: The National
Ads on social media can 'normalise' drugs
A UK report on youth social media habits commissioned by advocacy group Volteface found a quarter of young people were exposed to illegal drug dealers on social media.
The poll of 2,006 people aged 16-24 assessed their exposure to drug dealers online in a nationally representative survey.
Of those admitting to seeing drugs for sale online, 56 per cent saw them advertised on Snapchat, 55 per cent on Instagram and 47 per cent on Facebook.
Cannabis was the drug most pushed by online dealers, with 63 per cent of survey respondents claiming to have seen adverts on social media for the drug, followed by cocaine (26 per cent) and MDMA/ecstasy, with 24 per cent of people.
Uefa Nations League: How it Works
The Uefa Nations League, introduced last year, has reached its final stage, to be played over five days in northern Portugal. The format of its closing tournament is compact, spread over two semi-finals, with the first, Portugal versus Switzerland in Porto on Wednesday evening, and the second, England against the Netherlands, in Guimaraes, on Thursday.
The winners of each semi will then meet at Porto’s Dragao stadium on Sunday, with the losing semi-finalists contesting a third-place play-off in Guimaraes earlier that day.
Qualifying for the final stage was via League A of the inaugural Nations League, in which the top 12 European countries according to Uefa's co-efficient seeding system were divided into four groups, the teams playing each other twice between September and November. Portugal, who finished above Italy and Poland, successfully bid to host the finals.
Greatest Royal Rumble results
John Cena pinned Triple H in a singles match
Cedric Alexander retained the WWE Cruiserweight title against Kalisto
Matt Hardy and Bray Wyatt win the Raw Tag Team titles against Cesaro and Sheamus
Jeff Hardy retained the United States title against Jinder Mahal
Bludgeon Brothers retain the SmackDown Tag Team titles against the Usos
Seth Rollins retains the Intercontinental title against The Miz, Finn Balor and Samoa Joe
AJ Styles remains WWE World Heavyweight champion after he and Shinsuke Nakamura are both counted out
The Undertaker beats Rusev in a casket match
Brock Lesnar retains the WWE Universal title against Roman Reigns in a steel cage match
Braun Strowman won the 50-man Royal Rumble by eliminating Big Cass last
Our legal consultant
Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
Company Profile
Company name: OneOrder
Started: October 2021
Founders: Tamer Amer and Karim Maurice
Based: Cairo, Egypt
Industry: technology, logistics
Investors: A15 and self-funded
