Van der Linde Leads After First Hour in Dubai

Kelvin van der Linde led the Michelin 24H Dubai after the first hour, having jumped from fourth to first on the opening lap in the No. 669 Team WRT BMW M4 GT3 EVO.

Surprise polesitter Benjamin Paque initially kept the TFT Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo ahead with a very tight line on the first corner.

But he was not able to keep van der Linde at bay for long as the BMW blasted by on the back straight with Loek Hartog in the No. 10 Herberth Motorsport Porsche 911 GT3 R also getting ahead.

Hartog repeated his supreme first lap from the 6H Abu Dhabi last weekend as the flying Dutchman jumped from 10th on the grid into second.

The race was then neutralised almost immediately with a Code 60 required to recover debris at Turn 9 after the No. 25 Dragon Racing Ferrari 296 GT3 went off.

Van der Linde just about held on from Hartog and Paque upon the resumption six minutes later, before the top two then began to pull clear from the polesitter – the BMW ending the hour two seconds ahead of the Porsche.

It was clear Paque did not have the pace of some of the more experienced drivers behind and he had fallen almost five seconds adrift of the leader by the time James Kellett grabbed third place with a move on the inside of Turn 10 in the first of the Paradine Competition BMWs, which had also stormed up the order having started 12th.

From there, Paque plummeted down the field in subsequent laps and ended the opening hour 16th.

Maro Engel was up to fourth in the lead Mercedes-AMG, the No. 16 Winward Racing machine, while Augusto Farfus in the second Paradine BMW was fifth, with Jules Gounon rounding out the top six from 15th on the grid in the Grove Racing by GetSpeed Mercedes-AMG.

Another driver to slip down the order during the first hour was Elia Erhart in the No. 18 Sainteloc Junior Team Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II that had started on the front row but fell to 19th having also been unable to contend with the Pros.

In the 992 division, there was no repeat of the first-lap drama for the polesitting No. 909 Red Camel-Jordans.nl entry from Abu Dhabi as this was able to maintain the class lead in Dubai.

Also holding its place was the GT4 polesitter, the Cerny Motorsport BMW M4 GT4. However, the GTX lead did change with Roman Rusinov in the Rossa LM GT jumping the Leipert Motorsport Lamborghini Super Trofeo that started from pole.