Van der Linde Leads WRT 1-2 With Six Hours Left

BMW remained in command of the Michelin 24H Dubai with six hours to go, as Team WRT ran in 1-2 as dawn broke over the Dubai Autodrome.

The Munich manufacturer has largely dominated the 21st running of Creventic’s flagship event, with both WRT and Paradine Competition consistently featuring at the sharp end of the field.

After 18 hours, Kelvin van der Linde’s No. 669 BMW M4 GT3 EVO held a lead of two minutes and 45.333 seconds over the No. 27 sister WRT entry in the hands of former Audi factory ace Christopher Haase.

A further minute and 22.593 seconds behind, Luca Stolz held third aboard the No. 16 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo, followed by Paradine’s pair of cars in fourth and fifth.

Stolz moved up to third position after both Pedro Ebrahim and Ahmad Al Harthy stopped for fuel around the time a Code 60 was triggered when the No. 61 Earl Bamber Motorsport Porsche 911 GT3 R came to a halt on track.

Ebrahim, piloting the No. 991 BMW, sat 37.649 seconds ahead of Al Harthy’s No. 992 car, which continued to hold the lead in the GT3-Am category.

Jules Gounon ran in sixth aboard the No. 4 Grove Racing by GetSpeed Mercedes-AMG, followed by Dennis Marschall in the No. 777 Al Manar by Dragon Racing Ferrari 296 GT3.

The overall top ten was completed by a trio of Porsches, as the No. 92 Pure Rxcing-entered example ran ahead of the Herberth Motorsport entries of Antares Au and Max Moritz.

The GT4 category continued to be dominated by the No. 445 Cerny Motorsport BMW M4 GT4 EVO, with Ivan Krapivtsev running 41 laps clear of the next car in class.