Yas Marina Saturday Notebook

***Car Collection Motorsport has withdrawn the No. 12 Porsche 911 GT3 R from Sunday’s race as damage sustained following Stefano Constantini’s qualifying crash is too severe to be repaired in time for the start. It brings the total number of cars taking part down to 25.

***GruppeM Racing secured its second consecutive pole position at the event, with current driver Maro Engel leading a team 1-2 last year. Engel and co-drivers Mikael Grenier and Luca Stolz improved upon last year’s pole time, with their 1:51.272 comparing favorably to the 1:51.474 that topped qualifying a year ago.

***Engel, who recently saw a Macau podium fall away with late-race issues, hopes to bookend a challenging season with a victory at Yas Marina. “It’s time to turn things around,” he told Sportscar365. “I’ve obviously been around in racing long enough to know that sometimes you have these phases. But they always turn around and I want to try and do that here this weekend.”

***Team owner Kenny Chen said the chassis driven by Frank Bird, Lorenzo Ferrari and Lucas Auer, was supplied to the team by Mercedes-AMG. “They provide the car, they provide the drivers so they can see how they perform,” Chen said. The mamba-liveried car, meanwhile, is the same chassis that contested the previous IGTC rounds.

***Chen told Sportscar365 that his team will remain on the IGTC grid next year, while also planning to return to the FIA GT World Cup at Macau.

***Team WRT driver Dries Vanthoor made things “a bit more difficult” when he got his first lap deleted due to track limits, after which the session was stopped for an hour due to barrier repairs after Constantini’s crash. “Then I only had one more lap to put a lap in, but at the end I managed it,” the Belgian told Sportscar365. “So it was good enough.”

***Driving Force Events has announced a partnership with the Shanghai 8 Hours and promotor Top Speed, which will see the two parties share “knowledge, experience and technical solutions.” The Chinese event was held for the first time in October, during which Andrea Ficarelli was in attendance.

***Ficarelli said: “I firmly believe there is huge potential for a GT endurance race like this in such a key market as China for sports car manufacturers so I am sure it will develop into a top global race. We are proud to team up with the Shanghai 8 Hours team via this initiative, which will bring mutual benefits to both events.”

***Ficarelli indicated that logistical operations for next year’s event will be “very, very tough” due to the late timing of the Formula 1 season finale at the Abu Dhabi circuit. “[Our date] will be one week after the Formula One Grand Prix,” he said. “Their date is December 8 and we are on December 15.”

***Nick Yelloly is making his first race appearance with Team WRT in Abu Dhabi. The British driver won the CrowdStrike 24 Hours of Spa earlier this year at the wheel of a ROWE Racing BMW M4 GT3. “It’s interesting to have a feel of how they operate and what the car does,” Yelloly told Sportscar365. “WRT definitely seem like a bigger operation just because of the amount of cars that they have. Obviously they run sprint championships as well, but in terms of workforce and quality people, it’s very similar to ROWE.”

***Valentino Rossi admitted he struggled to adapt his braking style when he first sampled Team WRT’s Oreca 07 Gibson at the recent FIA World Endurance Championship Rookie Test in Bahrain. “You can push more, but the braking is difficult because without the ABS you have all the power in in your foot,” the Italian said. “You need to have a good feeling because it’s very easy to lock the tires. I expected to have to brake harder, but in this car, you have really to brake smooth. So the beginning was not easy.”

***1998 24 Hours of Le Mans winner Stephane Ortelli is on site at the event, supporting Garage 59 driver Louis Prette. Philippe Prette was due to drive the Baron Motorsport Ferrari 488 GT3 Evo 2020, but that was withdrawn from the event due insurmountable logistical challenges.

***There are three other family pairings on the grid: brothers Oliver and Benjamin Goethe in the second Garage 59 McLaren 720S GT3 Evo, Grove Racing father-and-son duo Stephen and Brenton Grove and the No. 85 CP Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo of Thomas, Corinna, Manuela and David Gostner.

***Frank Bird said his No. 77 GruppeM Racing Mercedes-AMG simply shut off during open running on Friday, which a Mercedes-AMG spokesperson said was caused by the safety system triggering due to a loose plug. “I was just going under the hotel section and the car just said ‘no more’ which was a bit of a shame. We’ve had a few little technical issues this weekend, but the team are working hard to fix it.”

***The Swiss-built Picasso 660LMS supercar was on display in the paddock on Saturday. Powered by a 3.0-liter twin-turbo V6 producing 660 horsepower, the car previously featured during the GT1 Sports Club sessions at the Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS Endurance Cup finale at Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.

***Further supercar machinery made an appearance shortly before qualifying in a Pirelli supercar parade, which took place under the lights and featured a variety of exotic machinery, including a McLaren Senna.

***The 13th edition of the Gulf 12 Hours gets underway Sunday at 10 a.m. local time (1 a.m. ET) with live coverage on SRO’s GT World YouTube channel.