CrowdStrike by APR Wins Saturday Dubai Race

CrowdStrike Racing by APR took victory in the third round of the Asian Le Mans Series in Dubai, just a week after winning the LMP2 category of the Rolex 24 at Daytona.

Swiss driver Louis Deletraz, who shares the No. 4 Oreca 07 Gibson with Peugeot Hypercar driver Malthe Jakobsen and George Kurtz, won the race after taking advantage of a late-race safety car.

Deletraz overtook Nielsen Racing’s Alex Quinn in the final minutes of the race.

The No. 64 Nielsen Racing entry failed to regain the lead and dropped to eighth by the end of the race. This allowed Deletraz to edge out an 8.988-second margin to Antonio Fuoco, who came second in the No. 47 Cetilar Racing Oreca.

Championship leader Cetilar has maintained a 13-point championship advantage over CrowdStrike Racing by APR.

Fuoco, Charles Milesi and Roberto Lacorte started seventh but cycled up the race order thanks to a safety car caused by a crash for the No. 11 TF Sport Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R at the beginning of the third hour.

After the final race restart in the last 20 minutes of the race, Fuoco’s tire advantage saw him surge up the running order.

Third place went to the No. 30 RD Limited car. Tristan Vautier took the checkered flag, taking the first podium of the season for the car he shared with James Allen and James Sweetnam.

Sweetnam was called in by RD Limited as a last-minute replacement for Fred Poordad. The British driver had no prior experience in the Oreca LMP2 car and started the race having had just 15 minutes of running in the car in Saturday morning’s qualifying session.

The No. 20 APR car of Sami Meguetounif, John Falb and Matthias Kaiser was in the running for podium positions throughout the race, eventually finishing fourth ahead of the No. 70 Vector Sport RLR entry of Jacob Abel, Vladislav Lomko and Daniel Schneider.

The pole-sitting No. 5 United Autosports car was running in the top two positions for most of the opening two hours but was forced to take an emergency fuel stop during the second safety car.

Gregoire Saucy would drop down the order, and a fuel stop before the third and final safety car of the race – caused by the 23Events Racing LMP3 car stopping on track – would disadvantage the team further. Saucy, Giorgio Roda and Mikkel Jensen finished in seventh place.

Last Lap LMP3 Chaos, Second Kessel Victory in GT

In LMP3, the battle between the No. 13 Inter Europol Competition Ligier JS P325 Toyota and the No. 29 Forestier Racing by VPS car would go down to the final lap.

The Inter Europol squad of Henry Cubides Olarte, Chun Ting Chou and Alexander Bukhantsov would eventually take the victory by 0.405 seconds.

Forestier Racing by VPS’ Luciano Morano made contact with the No. 43 Inter Europol LMP2 car on the final lap, giving Cubides the chance to overtake him.

The No. 71 23Events Racing car of Terrence Woodward, Matus Ryba and Ibrahim Badawy would finish third, 2.103 seconds behind the leading duo.

Kessel Racing, meanwhile, took a second victory of the season with its No. 74 Ferrari 296 GT3. Dennis Marschall overtook the No. 66 Corvette of Alexander Sims after the final safety car restart.

Sims and co-drivers Yasser Shahin and Prince Abu Bakar Ibrahim had led the race. However, the final safety car cut JMR’s substantial gap to the cars behind. Marschall, alongside co-drivers Chris Lulham and Dustin Blattner would win by 4.418 seconds.

The No. 10 Manthey Porsche 911 GT3 R of Loek Hartog, Antares Au and Klaus Bachler took third

Despite taking a front row lockout in qualifying, both GetSpeed Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo were forced to stop for fuel under the second safety car. The No. 37 QMMF by GetSpeed car would finish in tenth place, with the sister No. 9 GetSpeed entry finishing in 12th.

The second part of the 4H Dubai double-header begins Sunday 2:10 p.m local time (5:10 a.m ET).

Results: 4 Hours of Dubai (Race 1)