Qualifying Delayed After Accident for Dinamic Porsche

Qualifying for the Asian Le Mans Series season-opener at Dubai Autodrome was delayed by over two hours after a heavy accident for the Dinamic GT Porsche 911 GT3 R of Philipp Sager.

The Austrian driver lost control of the No. 54 Porsche on the back straight, crashing into the left-side barrier at high speed early in the 20-minute GT3 session.

Sager walked away from the scene unaided, however the car and the barrier sustained significant damage. The incident triggered a red flag in the first qualifying session of the new season due to extensive barrier repairs.

Race control resumed GT3 qualifying at 11:52 a.m. local time, after a delay of more than two hours.

The cause of the accident has not been determined, although Sager’s co-driver Ben Barker highlighted the challenge of Bronze-rated drivers qualifying without tire warmers, which is a new rule in Asian LMS this year.

“Phillip’s fine,” Barker told series TV pit lane reporter Hayley Edmonds. “He’s in the medical center having a few checkups.

“At the moment, we don’t know what’s happened. We didn’t speak to Phillip on the radio, but the damage looks pretty bad. It’s a real shame.

“Until he’s back, then we can’t find out exactly what happened. It’s a cold tire… the rule change now is that you’re not allowed tire heaters. For the Bronze drivers, it’s more of a challenge.

“But I don’t know what the situation is. It might have been mechanical, so I don’t want to put that blame on Phillip. We’ll find out soon when he’s back, but the main thing is that he’s OK.”

At the time of Sager’s accident, only four drivers had turned laps in the GT3 session.

For call three classes, each driver’s fastest lap time sets the grid for Race 1 today and their second-fastest lap time decides the grid for Race 2 on Sunday.

Late Driver Changes Ahead of Season-Opener

There have been a handful of driver lineup changes issued shortly before the Dubai Autodrome double-header event.

Tom Gamble has been drafted into the Garage 59 squad for this weekend’s pair of four-hour races, replacing Marvin Kichhoefer who has been ruled out on medical grounds.

In the LMP2 class, Bronze-rated Warren Hughes has replaced Felix Porteiro in the 99 Racing Oreca 07 Gibson due to Porteiro being upgraded to Silver status shortly before the event.

Additionally, Ollie Millroy has received a late call to slot into the HubAuto Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo alongside Jules Gounon and Liam Talbot.