Dubai 24 Hours: Fourth victory for Black Falcon Mercedes

Black Falcon #2 Mercedes-AMG GT3 is the winning car of the 24 Hours of Dubai, the first endurance race of the year and the opening round of the 2018 24H Series. The drivers who earned a victory at Dubai Autodrome are Yelmer Buurman, Hubert Haupt, Gabriele Piana and Abdulaziz Al Faisal.

It’s the fourth victory for Black Falcon at Dubai 24 Hours. The same crew already won the race in 2015 when the winners were Buurman, Haupt, Al Faisal and Oliver Webb.

Manthey Racing’s #12 Porsche finished in the second place

The winning crew of 2018 edition made 606 laps around 5.39-km long Dubai’s circuit, beating the second-placed #12 Manthey Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R by two laps. The drivers of the #12 Porsche were Sven Muller, Mathieu Jaminet, Lars Kern and Otto Klohs.

The #964 Grasser Racing Team’s Lamborghini Huracan GT3, which started from pole, finished in the third place, five seconds behind Porsche. The drivers in the #964 car were Mirko Bortolotti, Christian Engelhart, Rolf Ineichen and Mark Ineichen.

89 cars started the race, the #964 Lamborghini was on a pole

89 crews started the race after two cars retired following accidents during practice. The field was divided into eleven classes and subclasses (A6 Pro, A6 Am, 991 Pro, 991 Am, SPX, TCR, GT4, SP3, SP2, A2 and CUP1). The race counted for two separate championships – 24H GT Series and 24H TCE Series.

The winners of TCR category are Jean-Karl Vernay, Luca Engstler, Florian Thoma and Benjamin Leuchter in the #130 Liqui Moly Team Engstler’s Volkswagen Golf GTI TCR. The second-placed crew was the #129 LMS Racing by Bas Koeten Racing’s Seat Leon, driven by Olli Kangas, Kari-Pekka Laaksonen, Antti Buri and Willem Meijer. Bonk Motorsport’s #115 Audi RS3 LMS finished third in TCR class.

Liqui Moly Team Engstler took the victory in TCE Series

A6 Am class winners, and fourth overall, are Dominik Baumann, Lance-David Arnold, Valentin Pierburg and Tim Muller in the #16 SPS Automotive Performance Mercedes-AMG GT3. The best in the SPX class was the Ukrainian Tsunami RT #37 Porsche 991 Cup MR. In the 991 class, the #92 Fach Auto Tech’s Porsche 991 Cup took the victory.

In GT4 class, Phoenix Racing scored a 1-2 victory with two Audi R8 LMS GT cars. The winners in the #247 car are five drivers from Hong Kong. The #58 VDS Racing Adventures MARC Focus V8 took the victory in SP2 class while the winning car of the SP3 class is the #178 CWS Engineering Ginette G55. In Cup1 class, reserved for BMWM235i Racing Cup cars, the victory went to #131 crew of Hofor Racing by Bonk Motorsport. And finally, the A2 class victory went to Ciceley Motorsport’s #162 Renault Clio Cup.