TFT Mercedes-AMG Crew Takes Surprise Dubai Pole

TFT Racing’s Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo was a surprise polesitter for the Michelin 24H Dubai after Benjamin Paque set the pace in the event’s first-ever top 10 shootout.

The regular three qualifying sessions were held earlier with the average across each of these determining who would progress to the final shootout.

Winward Racing’s pair of Mercedes-AMGs topped those averages but Luca Stolz and Marvin Dienst could not match Paque’s performance on the single lap of the shootout as the Belgian grabbed pole for the Pro-Am TFT entry by 0.252 seconds with a 1:55.597.

Pierre Kaffer put an Audi on the front row with a 1:55.849 in the No. 18 R8 LMS GT3 Evo II.

Benjamin Goethe was a surprise third fastest in the No. 74 McLaren 720S GT3 Evo having originally missed out on making the top 10 but was promoted into the shootout following the technical exclusion of the No. 777 Dragon Racing Ferrari 296 GT3.

Goethe capitalised on the opportunity to post a 1:56.533 that was fractionally faster than Kelvin van der Linde in the best of the BMWs, the No. 669 M4 GT3 EVO.

Winward’s duo could only manage fifth and sixth, ahead of Christopher Haase’s WRT BMW, but were fortunate to even be that high on the grid as a glut of track-limits penalties caused some times to be deleted.

Oliver Goethe had posted a lap good enough for an eventual third place but the Dragon Ferrari driver was sanctioned, as were Loek Hartog in the No. 10 Herberth Motorsport Porsche 911 GT3 R and Alexey Nesov in the Pure Rxcing 911.

Away from GT3, the entire grid order for the other classes was still determined by the average across three 15-minute sessions and it was a second 992 pole in a row for the Red Camel-Jordans.nl squad.

The squad has won this race for the past two years and the crew of Ivo, Luk and Rik Breukers, along with Fabian Danz, was again fastest by nearly four tenths.

The GTX division was headed by the Leipert Lamborghini Huracan Super Trofeo crew of Don Yount, Manz Thalin and Brendon Leitch by a much smaller margin of just 0.067 seconds, over the Team CMR Ginetta G56 GT2.

Things were not quite so close in GT4 as the 6H Abu Dhabi-winning Cerny Motorsport BMW M4 GT4 was over three seconds faster than its rivals.

RESULTS: Top 10 Shootout