The Eastalent Racing Team achieved its first overall victory at the 24H Dubai 2024 on debut and the fourth overall for Audi Sport in this first round of the 24H Series.
The R8 LMS GT3 EVO II #54 (Christopher Haase / Simon Reicher / Markus Winkelhock / Mike Zhou / Gilles Magnus) qualified in sixth place and was a protagonist from the start, taking the lead for the first time on lap 36 .
The strategic use of the first neutralizations with Code 60 – making 34 stops in total, at least three more than its closest rivals, to keep the tank full of fuel – and the sustained pace during the night meant that, at dawn , the #54 had built up a two-lap lead.
While the Proton Huber Competition Porsche 992 GT3 R (#83, Rinat Salikhov / Sergei Borisov / Victor Shaytar / Sven Müller), which kept its rivals in suspense all night, eventually reduced the gap to just 96 seconds, Haase led the Audi to the finish line completing 603 laps of the 5.39km Dubai Autodrome.
Haase wins the event overall for the second time, after 2019 (again in an Audi R8). The Eastalent Racing Team is the first Austrian team to triumph since Duller Motorsport in 2007, and Winkelhock secures his sixth overall victory in a 24-hour event, his first in the United Arab Emirates.
In second place is the Porsche of Proton Huber Competition, followed by the BMW of Century (#22, Carl Cavers / Lewis Plato / Jack Barlow / Jacob Rattenbury), making its GT3 debut in Dubai and its first Pro category victory/ Am. Incredibly, the British team celebrates twice as the sister BMW M4 GT3 (#14, Michael Johnston / Chris Salkeld / Darren Leung / Sean Gelael) placed 5th overall to take GT3-Am.
The Porsche 992 GT3 R of Manamauri Energy by Ebimotors (#95, Fabrizio Broggi / Sergiu Nicolae / Sabino de Castro / Cosimo Papi) recovered from an initial puncture to finish 4th overall and win the GT3 Trophy for the Middle East teams Orient.
Behind Ebimotors, the 2019 winner Car Collection Motorsport (Audi #96, Dustin Blattner / Sebastian Gorga / Fuad Sawaya / Mark Wallenwein / Dennis Marschall), finished 6th overall and 3rd in GT3-Pro/Am.
With just 12 minutes left, the Saintéloc Junior Team Audi (#26, Wilfried Merafina / Thomas Merafina / Mattéo Merafina) succumbed to the HAAS RT Audi (#20, Jiatong Liang / Morris Schuring / Tim Müller / Florian Scholze ) 7th place overall and 2nd in GT3-Am. An excellent result for the French team, whose Audi #18 (Michael Doppelmayr / Pierre Kaffer / Elia Erhart Swen Herberger), which had achieved pole, retired after just 77 laps due to steering problems.
Behind us we have the Porsche 992 GT3 R of Huber Motorsport (#50, Scott Noble / Jason Hart / Hans Wehrmann / Florian Spengler), and despite problems with ABS, air conditioning and fuel pressure, the debutants from Parker Racing (#31, Shaun Lynn / Maxwell Lynn / Joe Wheeler / Robert Huff) completed the top 10 overall in the Bentley Continental GT3, a result which secured the British team the coveted “Spirit of the Race” award.
Several podium contenders failed to reach the finish line. The Attempto Racing Audi R8 LMS GT3 EVO II (#99, Alex Arkin Aka / Ricardo Feller / Dylan Pereira / Sergey Titarenko / Andrey Mukovoz) retired on Sunday morning while in second position, due to a “breakage” of the right rear curve.
Getspeed's Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo (#9, Anthony Bartone / Al Faisal Al Zubair / Dominik Baumann / Martin Konrad / Fabian Schiller) had also held 2nd place when the gearbox failed overnight, while the Porsche 992 Herbert Motorsport's GT3 R (#91, Ralf Bohn / Daniel Allemann / Alfred Renauer / Robert Renauer) retired after hitting the barriers in the first corner due to oil.
Dragon Racing (#88, Roald Goethe / Benjamin Goethe / Oliver Goethe / Stuart Hall / Jordan Grogor) missed out on a potential top-five finish when an alternator failure compromised the Ferrari 296 GT3's electrical system.
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