Proton Drama Hands APR Another Win in Dubai Finale

Algarve Pro Racing scored its third Asian Le Mans Series victory in a row with its No. 20 car of Alex Quinn, Olli Caldwell and Kriton Lendoudis as drama struck the leading Proton Competition car in the final five minutes of the second leg of the 4 Hours of Dubai.

Proton’s Tom Dillmann looked on course to deliver the German team a narrow win for most of the final hour, as he maintained a slender advantage over Quinn.

That was until Dillmann suffered a spin at Turn 12 as a result of unseen contact with a GT car with a little over four minutes on the clock, allowing Quinn to take a 6.5-second win aboard the No. 20 Oreca 07 Gibson and give APR a clean sweep of the weekend.

A last-lap battle for second was resolved in favor of the No. 30 RD Limited Oreca of Tristan Vautier, James Allen and Fred Poordad, who bested the No. 83 AF Corse car driven by Matthieu Vaxiviere, Francois Perrodo and Alessio Rovera.

The race was punctuated by three safety car periods that served to reset any diverging strategies, and when the race went green for the final time with just over an hour to go, Julien Andlauer led the field in the No. 91 Pure Rxcing car ahead of Dillmann’s No. 22 Proton entry and the two APR cars, Malthe Jakobsen leading Quinn.

Dillmann, who had taken over the car that started on pole in the hands of Giorgio Roda and stayed in contention during Vlad Lomko’s stint, was soon on the attack and passed Andlauer for the lead just before the three-hour mark.

The Frenchman proceeded to stretch a four-second gap over Quinn, who was able to navigate his way up to second amid chaotic scenes as Andlauer was nudged wide by Vaxiviere, an incident that presaged a rapid descent down the order for the No. 91.

Quinn was able to get the gap to Dillmann down to under a second at one stage during the final hour, but couldn’t quite catch Dillmann before the spin that decided the race, with race control putting the No. 22 Proton car under investigation for an unsafe rejoin after alleged contact with the No. 10 Manthey Porsche.

Proton’s misfortune meant a fierce battle between Vaxiviere and Tristan Vautier, who had taken the final restart down in seventh, was now for second instead of third, with Vautier getting the move done on the very final lap of the race.

Dillmann brought home the No. 22 car for fourth ahead of the No. 25 APR car of Malthe Jakobsen, Valerio Rinicella and Michael Jensen that won Saturday’s race but endured a subdued final hour in the hands of Jakobsen.

However, the No. 25 APR crew retains the lead of the LMP2 standings by three points ahead of the No. 30 RD Limited squad ahead of next weekend’s Abu Dhabi finale.

Andlauer was a lowly eighth in the Pure Rxcing car he shares with Alex Malykhin and Harry King after suffering a spin while battling Olivier Pla’s No. 50 AF Corse car for sixth.

DKR Engineering’s No. 3 car briefly led shortly before the halfway mark in the hands of Job van Uitert, but a subsequent six-minute trip to the garage to repair a broken damper ended the team’s hopes of following up on its strong Saturday result.

RLR MSport, Herberth Motorsport Take Class Wins

In LMP3, RLR MSport took a first win of the season, coming out on top of an intense three-way fight against Bretton Racing and High Class Racing.

Ian Aguilera, Chris Short and Nick Adcock prevailed by 12.5 seconds at the wheel of the No. 15 Ligier JS P320 Nissan over the No. 26 Bretton Racing car of Theodor Jensen, Jens Reno Moeller and Griffin Peebles that had won Saturday’s opener.

The two cars were running nose-to-tail in the run-up to the final pit stops, with Bretton’s Jensen struggling to hold off Aguilera in the RLR MSport car, but swifter pit work by the latter team allowed Aguilera into a lead he wouldn’t lose.

Anders Fjordbach caught up to Jensen and Aguilera before his final stop, taking third in the No. 49 High Class car he shares with Mark Patterson and Thomas Kiefer.

Ultimate maintains a three-point championship lead over their nearest rivals, the No. 26 Bretton crew, heading to Abu Dhabi despite the team’s No. 35 car coming to a stop on track in the third hour, causing the final safety car.

GT honors went the way of Herberth Motorsport’s No. 99 Porsche 911 GT3 R, with Ralf Bohn and brothers Alfred and Robert Renauer taking the spoils.

Topping up for fuel under the first virtual safety car, which followed an early incident involving both Optimum Motorsport McLaren 720s GT3 Evos, was key to Herberth’s eventual win, as it allowed the No. 99 car to stretch its fuel mileage to the second caution period midway through hour two, triggered by debris on track.

That cycled Bronze-rated Bohn to the front of the field ahead of the pole-winning No. 74 Kessel Racing Ferrari 296 GT3, although the car had to make an additional pit stop to allow Bohn to reach his maximum drive time as he had fallen 10 seconds short.

The final caution allowed Herberth the breathing space needed to perform the change, and after jumping ahead of the No. 81 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo at the last round of stops, Alfred Renauer brought home the No. 99 car to win by 2.4 seconds.

However, the No. 81 car of Gabriele Piana, Luca Stolz and Rinat Salikhov came away with maximum points as the Herberth Porsche was a guest entry not eligible to score, giving the trio a 15-point championship lead heading to Abu Dhabi.

A late charge from Aston Martin factory racer Mattia Drudi yielded third place for the No. 89 EBM Vantage GT3 Evo he shares with Jamie Day and Gabriel Rindone ahead of the No. 10 Manthey Porsche of Klaus Bachler, Joel Sturm and Antares Au.

The Saturday race-winning 2Seas Motorsport Mercedes-AMG finished sixth, one place behind the No. 92 Manthey EMA Porsche that now sits second in the standings, while the pole-winning No. 74 Kessel Ferrari finished down in 10th place.

RESULTS: 4 Hours of Dubai