WRT Takes Dominant 1-2 in 24H Dubai

Team WRT scored a 1-2 in the Michelin 24H Dubai with Jordan Pepper, Kelvin van der Linde, Ben Tuck, Fran Rueda and Anthony McIntosh prevailing, but BMW was denied a podium lockout after a brake disc failure and puncture on the No. 992 Paradine car with less than 30 minutes to go.

The quartet of BMW M4 GT3 EVOs were the class of the field for much of the race and the German manufacturer always looked likely to tie with Porsche on six wins in this event.

But which of the M4s would triumph was less certain, especially when a Code 60 within the last hour when the leaders were making their final scheduled pitstops created uncertainty over whether each car would have enough fuel to make it to the flag.

However, the No. 669 crew saved enough fuel to not need to pit again and Pepper guided the M4 across the line to complete 604 laps, one more than the second-placed sister No. 27 car of Christopher Haase, Mathieu Detry, Julian Hanses, Stanislav Minsky and Thomas Kiefer.

James Kellett was on course to bring the No. 992 Paradine entry home in third and win the Am class, until the damage from the late failure left it stuck in the pits and off the Am podium.

BMW’s hopes of completing only the second podium lockout for a manufacturer in the event’s history were over as the No. 16 Winward Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo of Maro Engel, Luca Stolz, Daan Arrow and Sergey Stolyarov was third.

The other Paradine BMW, the No. 991 of Kellett, Augusto Farfus, Jamie Day, Darren Leung and Pedro Ebrahim was fourth, while the No. 10 Herberth Motorsport Porsche of Loek Hartog, Joel Sturm, Antares Au and Ralf Bohn was fifth and topped the Pro-Am class.

Hartog had blasted from 10th to second on the first tour but was unable to maintain that lofty position for the majority of the race.

The No. 669 BMW moved into the lead on the very first lap, having started fourth, with van der Linde providing early evidence of the Bavarian marque’s pace.

But the race’s order was shuffled significantly in the second hour when a Code 60 period coincided with the conclusion of the opening round of pitstops.

This helped a clutch of unlikely cars vault to the head of the leaderboard, including the No. 777 Dragon Racing Ferrari 296 GT3 that had stormed up from the very back of the grid after having its opening qualifying session times deleted for a turbo overboost.

The No. 14 Razoon Porsche 911 GT3 R also had a spell in the lead during the jumbled strategies before the BMWs reasserted their authority in the fourth hour.

Initially, it was the No. 991 Paradine Competition BMW that assumed top spot with a great couple of stints from Kellett early during the night helping it to build an advantage before it started suffering with radio and traction control problems.

But the factory BMW drivers in the No. 669 WRT entry helped propel it back ahead in the 13th hour and, from there, it led until the flag.

BMW’s path to dominance was aided by two frontrunning crews suffering bizarre near-identical problems during the eighth hour.

First, the No. 81 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG lost a right-rear wheel and came to a halt entering the back straight when Marvin Dienst had just guided it up to third place.

Barely half an hour later, the No. 2 Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II that had inherited the lead during a pitstop sequence came to a stop at exactly the same place, also minus its right-rear wheel. While the Mercedes-AMG was retired, the Audi continued after brake line repairs to ultimately finish 18th in GT3.

Another Mercedes-AMG in strife was the surprise polesitting TFT Racing machine. After Benjamin Paque’s defences were continually breached in the opening hour, it then retired after around one quarter of the race with ABS issues.

The No. 777 Dragon Ferrari had been in the mix to be the best non-BMW finisher before Al Faisal Al Zubair crashed at Turn 9 with three hours to go.

Instead rounding out the top six was the No. 92 Pure Rxcing Porsche, which profited from the No. 4 Grove Racing by GetSpeed Mercedes-AMG needing to make a late splash and dash.

The second of the Herberth Porsches was eighth, while the Razoon 911 was ninth and the Continental Racing by Simpson Motorsport Audi wrapped up the top 10 and inherited the Am class victory after Paradine’s late troubles.

There was more BMW success in the GT4 division as the Cerny Motorsport M4 GT4 of Ivan Krapivtsev, Joshua Bednarski, Florian Sternkopf and Shiv Sapra finished a colossal 64 laps clear of the opposition as the other GT4 machines had troubled races.

The GTX class had featured a battle between the Rossa LM GT and the Team CMR Ginetta G56 GT2 for much of its duration. That was until the Rossa had a huge crash with four hours left to go when Roman Rusinov was caught out lapping a pair of 992 class Porsches that were battling into Turn 10.

However, the Ginetta was also in strife a couple of hours later when its silencer broke and fumes began entering the cockpit. It still finished second in class behind the Leipert Lamborghini Huracan Super Trofeo of Brendon Leitch, Manz Thalin, Gerhard Waltzinger, Don Yount and Fred Roberts.

The 992 victory went to the No. 962 Tierra Outdoor Racing by FACH crew of Robert de Haan, Huub van Eijndhoven, Ralph Poppelaars and Wouter Boerekamps by two laps. This had featured a close battle in the first half of the race but this gradually strung out, including after Ivo Breukers in the pacesetting Red Camel-Jordans.nl Porsche crashed when caught out by a GT3.

RESULTS: Race