Dubai Pre-Race Notebook

Photo: John Dagys

***Black Falcon’s replacement No. 16 Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG GT3 returned to the track in warmup following a massive fire that destroyed its primary car on Thursday afternoon. Adam Christodoulou turned laps in the team’s 2015 race-winning chassis, bedding in brakes. The team worked until 5 a.m. prepping the car, which hadn’t run since December’s Gulf 12 Hours.

***After receiving burns to his face and hands in the fire, Patrick Assenheimer is not expected to drive the No. 16 entry, leaving Christodoulou, Oliver Webb, Oliver Morley and Frankie Montecalvo to pilot the car. “All the drivers didn’t get many laps at all and we’re going into it with four drivers,” Montecalvo told Sportscar365. “That means I’m going to be a busy boy.”

***The No. 2 Black Falcon Mercedes-AMG GT3 topped the time charts in an incident-filled warmup session. Jeroen Bleekemolen reeled off a best lap of 2:00.837 in the session that saw two red flags, including another heavy accident for the No. 202 Red Camel Racing MARC Mazda3 V8.

***It’s been an extremely challenging week for the Red Camel crew, which suffered an accident on Wednesday, returned Thursday evening after sourcing replacement parts but stopped on track on its out lap. A crew member then flew in parts from Europe prior to its latest issue in warmup.

***There’s been further Balance of Performance adjustments this morning, with the Lamborghini Huracan GT3 getting a 20kg weight break (1300kg to 1280kg), the Audi losing 5 liters of fuel capacity (105 to 100 liters), the Nissan GT-R NSIMO GT3 getting a 2mm larger restrictor (38mm x2 to 40mm x2) and the Renault RS01 getting a 60kg weight reduction (1280kg to 1220 kg).

***If the Red Camel car can get back going, there will be 99 cars starting the race this afternoon, with the No. 152 Sorg Rennsport0 BMW M235i Racing Cup being the only official retirement from the event thus far, following an accident on Thursday.

***Watch the Hankook 24 Hours of Dubai on the series’ official Web site, with lights-to-flag coverage of the race, which begins today at 2 p.m. local (5 a.m. ET). Full 24-hour coverage will also be available on Motors TV and on RadioLeMans.com.

John Dagys

John Dagys is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Sportscar365. Dagys spent eight years as a motorsports correspondent for FOXSports.com and SPEED Channel and has contributed to numerous other motorsports publications worldwide. Contact John