Pure Rxcing Captures 24H Dubai Pole

Pure Rxcing will start the 20th Michelin 24H Dubai from pole position after beating Winward Racing in a red-flagged qualifying session.

Alex Malykhin, Harry King and Thomas Preining laid down a combined time of 1:58.353 aboard the No. 92 Porsche 911 GT3 R they share with Alexey Nesov.

That was enough to beat the No. 16 Winward Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo by 0.504 seconds, with the No. 24 Dinamic GT Porsche of Thomas Kiefer, Stanislav Minsky, Klaus Bachler, Loek Hartog and Anders Fjordbach third.

The first segment of the three-part GT3 qualifying session was interrupted by a lengthy red flag after an incident involving the No. 99 Tresor Attempto Racing Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo and No. 11 Hofor Racing Mercedes-AMG required barrier repairs.

The Zhou Bihuang-driven Audi suffered significant rear-end damage as a result of the crash, with the team’s status for the race currently a question mark.

Once qualifying resumed, Dinamic GT driver Kiefer led the first segment before individual strong showings from King and Preining firmly placed the No. 92 Porsche atop the timesheets.

Preining set the fastest lap across all sessions, posting a 1:58.001 in the third and final segment.

Al Manar Racing by Team WRT’s No. 777 BMW M4 GT3 EVO took fourth, with the No. 88 Dragon Racing Ferrari 296 GT3 of Patrick Liddy, Blake McDonald, Dustin Blattner and Matt Bell completing the overall top five.

The No. 91 Herberth Motorsport Porsche took sixth, ahead of SMP Racing and the GT3 Am-polesitting No.991 Paradine Competition BMW driven by Darren Leung, Ahmad Al Harthy, Toby Sowery and Simon Traves.

A pair of Mercedes-AMGs from Haupt Racing Team and MP Motorsport rounded out the overall top ten.

Class pole in the GT4 category went to the No. 495 Team CMR Ginetta G56 GT4 EVO driven by Lawrence Tomlinson, Freddie Tomlinson Michael Simpson and Nico Prost, who posted a combined 2:11.227.

Track action at the Dubai Autodrome continues with night practice, which has been pushed back to 7:45 p.m. GST (10:45 a.m. ET) as a result of the earlier delay.