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24H Series

Al Qubaisi, Bortolotti Crash Out at Daybreak

Khaled Al Qubaisi, Mirko Bortolotti crash in Hour 17…

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An accident between the third-place running No. 2 Black Falcon Mercedes-AMG GT3 of Khaled Al Qubaisi and Mirko Bortolotti’s No. 963 Grasser Racing Team Lamborghini Huracan GT3 has taken both cars out of contention of the Hankook 24 Hours of Dubai.

The two cars made contact late in the 17th hour, following a spin into the barriers by former race winner Al Qubaisi, while he was limping his Mercedes-AMG GT3 back to the pits.

The incident brought out the 17th Code 60 period of the race.

“While overtaking one of the slower cars, I didn’t see a lot of [tire] pickup there. The car just lost it,” Al Qubaisi told Radio Le Mans’ Joe Bradley. “I hit the barrier.

“It seemed OK, as I was going back to the [pits], it continued to turn and got collected by one of the cars coming.

“It’s something on the front-right. There’s damage there. I think it will take more than 20 minutes to fix.”

Bortolotti’s Lamborghini, which was running eighth overall at the time, didn’t make it back to the pits.

It effectively ends Lamborghini’s hopes of dethroning the German manufacturer’s stranglehold on the race, with all three contending Huracan GT3s now appearing to be out of the race.

Al Qubaisi’s accident has elevated the sister No. 3 Black Falcon Mercedes-AMG of Yelmer Buurman to second, ahead of the recovering No. 12 Manthey Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R of Jochen Krumbach in third.

The Manthey car, however, still runs three laps behind the overall race-leading Herberth Porsche of Daniel Allemann.

John Dagys is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Sportscar365. Dagys spent eight years as a motorsports correspondent for FOXSports.com and SPEED Channel and has contributed to numerous other motorsports publications worldwide. Contact John

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