Leung: Dubai Double Duty Serving as Le Mans Prep

Darren Leung says he is embarking on a double duty program in the Michelin 24H Dubai as a means of adequately preparing for his second appearance in the 24 Hours of Le Mans later this year.

The British racer is driving two different BMW M4 GT3 EVOs in the Middle Eastern enduro, combining driving duties for his own Paradine Competition squad with joining Al Faisal Al Zubair, Ben Tuck, Dan Harper and Max Hesse aboard the No. 777 Al Manar Racing by Team WRT entry.

The 37-year-old explained that he is taking on the 24H Dubai as a means to prepare for the season ahead, which will include a return to the FIA World Endurance Championship and 24 Hours of Le Mans with United Autosports.

“You think, ‘well, if you really want to try and maximize the prep, then why not up my driving time?’ That’s how we’re kind of treating this,” Leung told Sportscar365.

“I had an opportunity to drive with Faisal and WRT, but just driving with those guys, I’ll only do four hours.

“So for me, that’s not really giving me good prep for the year. You go to Le Mans and I’ll end up doing 50 percent more hours than that.

“And it’s Le Mans, so it’s a much longer event. It’s much more tiring, all that sort of stuff.

“So I thought, ‘Well maybe if I could target ten, eleven hours in this race, then that would probably be good prep for Le Mans.’

“It’s probably 50 percent more tiring in Le Mans than it is here.”

“I want to go to Le Mans and feel like I’ll dust off six hours as quick as anybody wants me to.

“Generally speaking, when you’re turning up to WEC, the Bronze is the weakest link, and for me it’s quite important to go there and the team sees that I’ve at least done everything I can to prepare for them.

“There’s a lot of people who put a lot of time and energy into it, so I want to make sure I do my bit.”

Both the No. 777 Al Manar by WRT and No. 991 Paradine Competition car, the latter of which Leung will share with Ahmad Al Harthy, Toby Sowery and Simon Traves, are being run out of the same garage close to pit exit.

Leung described the joint setup as “fantastic,” noting that there is a level of collaboration going on between the two squads.

“It’s really nice, actually, because obviously I’ve been racing with [Paradine] for quite a while now. It’s just been a really nice time.

“We’ve obviously been running the Evo car for the first time for us. [WRT] have had it just very slightly longer. So we’ve been quite collaborative and kind of working stuff out. It’s been very nice.”

When asked about setup philosophies between the two squads, Leung noted that they are ‘different, but converging,’ adding that the differences between the two will be to his benefit for his learning process.

“I don’t think they’ll be identical,” he said.

“So there is a bit of adaptation, I think that’s as well part of the preparation for me.

“I’ve worked into my program driving a bunch of other cars and this kind of really helped me learn to adapt quicker, which is generally something as a Bronze driver felt like I was always lacking compared to the other guys, against the pros.

“Anybody can look at data until they’re blue in the face and then try and exactly copy what the other pros are doing, but they’re not pros because they do that lap.

“They’re pros because they can get in and they’re the reference. They find that lap very quickly.

“So yeah, I think the differences between the cars will just help some of the preparation.”

Leung outlined that it has not yet been fully nailed down how he will split his driving time between the two cars, but added that he would ‘like to do as much driving as he can’ from the early stages of the race.

“I think I’ll probably end up doing a couple of hours with WRT early on in the race and I’ll probably do a couple of hours later on in the race,” he said.

“And then I’ll want to try and maximize within the rules what I can do in the other car.”