Dinamic GT Porsche Leads Michelin 24H DUBAI At Half-Distance

Halfway through a scintillating 20th Anniversary Michelin 24H DUBAI, Dinamic GT’s Porsche 911 GT3 R (992) held the overall lead of the race under night skies at Dubai Autodrome with an unpredictable battle for supremacy between Porsche, BMW and Mercedes-AMG set to rage to the chequered flag.

Race one of the 24H SERIES Middle East Trophy has certainly delivered tremendous competition, and its fair share of drama too across all classes, over the course of the first 12 hours from the impressive grid of 63 cars – just under half of those in the headline GT3 class.

At the rolling start at 13.00 local time on Saturday, Alexey Nesov judged his launch perfectly to rocket from pole in the Pure Rxcing Porsche 911 GT3 R (992). Gabriele Piana, in the Pro-Am Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 EVO, wasn’t prepared to tuck-in though and dived outside at Turn One.

Side-by-side through the first sequence of corners, Piana boldly went through and he opened a lead of over three seconds within 10 minutes. The most impressive start among the front-runners in GT3 actually came from the Paradine Competition BMW M4 GT3 EVO, Toby Sowery slicing through from eighth on the grid – the Am class pole – into the overall top three midway through lap one.

By lap six Sowery was into second ahead of the Pure Rxcing car, and he was duly followed through past the Porsche by the AlManar Racing by Team WRT BMW M4 EVO of Max Hesse. On lap 18, almost 40 minutes into the race, Sowery smartly passed Piana for the overall lead and then, through traffic on lap 20, Hasse moved ahead of the Mercedes for second to make it a BMW M4 one-two.

With just half a second between the lead duo as the end of hour one neared, Hesse made his move on lap 28 to pass Sowery and started to pull away. In hour two a Code 60 period was called after an incident out of the last corner, involving the 992 class No.990 JBR Porsche 911 GT3 Cup (992), but when racing resumed another Code 60 was required just 30 seconds later.

In an attempt to avoid a slowing Era Motorsport Ferrari 296 GT3, Frederic Jousset made heavy contact with wall on the approach to Turn Three in the Team Motopark Mercedes-AMG GT3 EVO. Racing resumed again halfway through hour three with Winward Racing leading overall and Pro-Am, Sergey Stolyarov at the wheel, just ahead of Thomas Kiefer in the Dinamic GT Porsche.
In short order, though, Dustin Blattner passed the Porsche for second in the Dragon Racing Ferrari 296 GT3 and swiftly dispatched Stolyarov from the lead. Code 60 flags were in evidence again near the conclusion of hour three, due to debris on track, and at the resumption Blattner led from Kiefer.

As afternoon edged towards evening the two BMWs, Al Faisal Al Zubair in the AlManar car and Simon Traves in the Paradine entry, were first and second overall as the latest pit-stop strategies played out ahead of another Code 60. With headlights now ablaze, Porsches returned to the top two in hour five with Harry King leading for Pure Rxcing from Anders Fjordbach in the Dinamic GT car.

Daniel Harper held third in the No.777 AlManar Racing BMW, but soon leaped ahead of Fjordbach, and then another Code 60 came at 18.00 local time – the No.414 Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 Clubsport of Ajith Kumar becoming stranded at the entry of pitlane. After the next resumption Loek Hartog in the Dinamic Porsche held a slim lead from Harper, before the No.414 car encountered more trouble.

This time, Dominik Olbert visited the tyre wall at Turn 10 to bring another Code 60. At the front in GT3 when the action resumed again, the main race-long contenders stayed locked in battle and at one third distance Sowery held the outright lead for Paradine.

More Code 60 interventions followed and Paradine continued to lead overall, now with Ahmad Al Harthy at the wheel, with Hartog second for Pure Rxcing and, notably, the Optimum Motorsport McLaren 720S GT3 EVO up into the top six after a sure and steady ascent up the order.

As the GT3 podium placings continued to be exchanged through differing strategies as Saturday turned into Sunday, the AlManar BMW led after 11 hours from the Pure and Dinamic Porsches. At 01.00 local time, though, it was Dinamic ahead with Klaus Bachler at the wheel, from AlManar’s Al Faisal, Pure’s Nesov, Am leader Al Harthy in the Paradine car and Piana in the Winward Mercedes.

992:
In the 992 class, Paul Meijer made the most of SebLajoux Racing’s inherited pole position in the No.992 Porsche 911 GT3 Cup (992) – following a two-place grid penalty for the team’s sister car and also the No.909 Red Camel-Jordans.nl Porsche – and opened a healthy advantage during hour one.

Rik Breukers ran in second initially for Red Camel-Jordans.nl, before Huub van Eijndhoven moved through in the Tierra Outdoor Racing by HWM car. Meijer continued to lead into hour two and the No.992 car held a significant advantage of almost one and a half minutes after the early Code 60s with Louis Perrot then driving.

By the end of the fourth hour the lead had reduced to less than 30 seconds, and the Red Camel-Jordans.nl with Luc Breukers at the wheel was back into second spot. His father, Ivo, took over driving duties at the next stop and went on to move into the lead of the class.

Approaching hour seven the No.912 entry from Tierra Outdoor Racing by HWM was back at the front with the Ajith Kumar Racing by BKR Porsche second, Mathieu Delry aboard, and Fabian Danz third in the Red Camel-Jordans.nl car – but the latter moved back to the front with eight hours gone.

Tierra Outdoor Racing by HWM took over in the lead of 992, Jop Rappange driving, as Saturday night wore on but at mid-distance at 01.00 on Sunday morning Rik Breukers led the way in the Red Camel-Jordans.nl Porsche ahead of Ralph Poppelaars for Tierra Outdoor and Delry in third. In the Am class, QMMF by HRT Performance shaded the No.888 SebLajoux Racing car by a fraction at mid-distance.

GTX, GT4 and TCE-TCX:
Brendon Leitch, Leipert Motorsport’s star qualifier in the GTX class Lamborghini Huracan Super Trofeo EVO, made a terrific start to the race and was 24th overall among the GT3 entries by the end of the first lap, before settling into a great rhythm and dominating the class early on.

Towards the end of hour three, JJ Song was behind the wheel of the Leipert car which continued to impress. The IRC GT car of 111 Racing was the closest challenger originally, still the thick end of a lap adrift of the leader, but nobody could take the fight to Leipert with the Lamborghini leading GTX by 10 laps as the halfway point was passed. The No.701 Vortex 2.0 holds second with the IRC GT third.

Jeroen Bleekemolen quickly seized the lead of GT4 in the No.470 WS Racing BMW M4 GT4 at the start, the pole-qualifying No.495 Ginetta G56 GT4 EVO of Lawrence Tomlinson slipping back to fourth. Ramez Azzam made it two BMWs at the front, for AGMC Racing by Simpson Motorsport, but the No.427 SRS Team Sorg Rennsport Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 RS soon led as the first hours passed.

WS Racing returned to the front of the class in hour five, in the hands of George King, ahead of the No.495 Team CMR Ginetta – now with Nico Prost onboard. Then there was drama for the No.427 car in hour six with Gero Bauknecht at the wheel, tagged by lapping GT3 machinery while he was second in GT4 – resulting in a crawl back to the pits with damage to the front right.

SRS Team Sorg Rennsport did a sterling job to get the suspension and steering repaired, the No.427 heading back into the race just before the end of the sixth hour. Team CMR led to hour seven, Mike Simpson driving, from the WS Racing BMW with Bleekemolen.

When the race hit one third distance, though, drama struck the No.470 when, with Emely de Heus at the wheel, it expired in flames. Team CMR’s Ginetta pressed on in the GT4 lead and by 01.00 on Sunday morning the No.495 car had an advantage of seven laps from the AGMC Racing BMW M4.

In TCE-TCX, SRS Team Sorg Rennsport enjoyed a good beginning with Yutaka Seki steering its Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 CS (Type 982) ahead of the pole-qualifying Cupra TCR DSG of AsBest Racing’s Lutz Obermann. Dominating during the opening hours, through the various driver changes, the No.127 continued apace into the evening.

Just before 23.00 local time, though, everything went awry when the Cayman, leading by a couple of laps with Yasuhiro Misashi at the wheel, came to grief at Turn Seven with the car requiring recovery back to the pits. This opened the way for AsBest Racing to claim the class lead with its No.101 Seat Leon Cup Racer.

The race continues to a finish at 13.00 local time, Sunday, 12 January. Keep up with all of the action at the official 24H SERIES YouTube channel and visit www.24hseries.com