Champions Crowned, DKR Win Season Finale

CrowdStrike Racing by APR was confirmed as Asian Le Mans Series champions in the season-concluding 4 Hours of Abu Dhabi at the Yas Marina Circuit, as DKR Engineering’s Alexander Mattschull, Mathias Beche and Griffin Peebeles took a first victory of the campaign.

CrowdsSrike crew George Kurtz, Malthe Jakobsen and Louis Deletraz secured the LMP2 title and an automatic invitation to the Le Mans 24 Hours with an eighth-place finish after a lengthy red flag interruption.

The race was paused for 70 minutes after a major accident involving Michael Jensen’s Algarve Pro Racing Oreca 07 Gibson and the Kessel Racing Ferrari 296 GT3 of Memo Gidley 40 minutes into the contest, and the time lost to barrier repairs was not added on.

With a 25-point buffer after its victory on Saturday, Crowdstrike by APR were virtually assured of the title unless Cetilar Racing took victory, and were glad of their breathing room after being served a drive-through penalty for a starting procedure infringement, and a further five-second penalty for forcing another car off-track.

DKR’s No. 3 Oreca triumphed by 11.532 seconds over the No. 43 Inter Europol Competition Oreca of Giorgios Kolovos, Bjoy Garg and Nolan Siegel, while the No. 49 High Class Racing Oreca of Jens Reno Moller, Gustavo Menezes and Theodor Jensen finished third. It was the best result of the campaign for all three crews, and the first time any had reached the podium.

DKR entered contention for victory towards the end of the third hour after Beche, who had recently moved ahead of Matthias Kaiser (APR) and Garg into third, handed over to Peebles under a Virtual Safety Car triggered when Matthieu Vaxiviere’s fuel-starved ARC Bratislava machine became stranded on track.

The time saved allowed Peebles to jump ahead of both the High Class machine recently vacated by Menezes and Mikkel Jensen in the No. 5 United Autosports Oreca, which had led to this point throughout in the hands of polesitter Giorgio Roda and Gregoire Saucy.

As the No. 5 car faded to seventh in the final hour, potentially linked to damage incurred when Salih Yoluc’s Corvette Z06 GT3.R ran into Saucy under a VSC, Peebles held the lead to the flag as multiple strategies played out in the closing laps.

Despite a shorter fill at the final stop, Theodor Jensen emerged behind Siegel and only just held onto third from a charging Sami Meguetounif in the No. 20 APR Oreca.

The Frenchman, sharing with Kaiser and John Falb, had moved ahead of Paul Di Resta’s No. 6 United Autosports machine with some quick times around the final stops and then inherited fourth in the closing laps following a mistake from Antonio Fuoco.

Cetilar Racing’s recovery from the back of the grid for triggering a red flag in qualifying had been aided by an early VSC for debris, which allowed starting driver Charles Milesi to relay bronze Roberto Lacorte with minimal time loss, but Fuoco’s over-optimistic move on an LMP3 car at Turn 5 caused him to spin back to seventh.

A post-race 30-second penalty attributed in lieu of a stop-go penalty dropped the AF Corse-run team to tenth in the final classification.

Di Resta, Ben Hanley and Philip Fayer therefore finished fifth, ahead of Nielsen Racing’s Kriton Lentoudis, Cem Bolukbasi and Alex Quinn.

CLX, Kessel Racing Claim Titles Despite Disappointments

CLX Motorsport drivers Paul Lanchere, Kevin Rabin and Alexander Jacoby clinched the LMP3 championship from the garage, as 23 Events Racing claimed victory.

Rabin’s No. 17 Ligier JS P325 Toyota was leading the race in the final hour, but under pressure from Pierre-Alexandre Provost’s R-ACE GP Duqueine D09 Toyota when the Frenchman punted his Swiss rival into the barriers at Turn 5.

The damage to the Ligier’s left-rear corner meant it was unable to rejoin the race, but sole championship rivals Forestier Racing by VPS were already multiple laps down and unable to capitalise before Luciano Morano was tagged late on by Fuoco.

Damage to the Duqueine’s nose section, and a subsequent stop-go penalty, allowed 23 Events crew Louis Stern, Isaac Barashi and Matteo Quintarelli to take a comfortable victory in their No. 23 Ligier.

The sister No. 71 entry of Terrence Woodward, Ibrahim Badawy and Matus Ryba had been on course for second until the latter was slapped with a drive-through penalty for spinning Team Virage’s Vic Stevens at Turn 13, which was converted into a 25-second post-race penalty.

This dropped the No. 71 car to third, behind the No. 13 Inter Europol Competition Ligier of Alexander Bukhantsov, Henry Cubides and Chun Ting Chou that had led for a time before falling back in the final hour.

After losing Gidley’s sister car, Kessel Racing could still celebrate the GT class title and secure the second Le Mans automatic invitation with Dustin Blattner, Chris Lulham and Dennis Marschall despite a disjointed run to ninth.

Blattner was served a drive-through for a pass-around infringement, and the Ferrari crew was never in the mix for a podium. However, a disappointing run to tenth for their principal title rivals in the No. 69 WRT BMW M4 GT3 EVO meant the championship was not under threat.

Despite suffering an opening lap puncture, the Ecurie Ecosse Blackthorn Aston Martin Vantage AMR GT3 of Giacomo Petrobelli, Jonny Adam and Kobe Pauwels prevailed in a strategic race over GetSpeed’s No. 9 Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo driven by Steve Jans, Anthony Bartone and Fabian Schiller as maximum stint lengths – due to the shortened race – became a limiting factor.

Following the restart, Petrobelli recovered well before relaying Adam, who ended his stint in fourth as Loek Hartog’s No. 10 Manthey Porsche 911 GT3 R disputed the lead with the pursuing Alexei Nesov’s No. 59 United Autosports McLaren 720S GT3.

However, both were at a strategic disadvantage relative to the pursuing Pauwels, who moved up to third when Bartone pitted to relay Schiller.

Wayne Boyd continued the chase of Hartog after taking over from Nesov, but a maximum drive time of 53 minutes meant he had to vacate the cockpit again in the closing stages.

Pauwels also had to run through the pits to reset his drive-time, but could crucially stay aboard and lose far less time than it took for Hartog to hand over to Klaus Bachler with just five minutes left on the clock.

The Porsche Hartog and Bachler shared with Antares Au would complete the podium ahead of AF Corse’s No. 21 and No. 51 Ferraris, while the United Autosports McLaren started by Andrey Mukovoz ultimately fell to an unrepresentative sixth.

RESULTS: Race 2