BMW claims Dubai 24 double spoils on debut for GT3 EVO

BMW’s upgraded M4 GT3 EVO took victory on its maiden outing in final weekend’s Dubai 24 Hours, as WRT secured its third win within the final 4 years on the occasion.

Entered below the Al Manar Racing by WRT banner, the second iteration of the profitable BMW that was launched in 2022 beat robust competitors from Porsche to assert outright spoils, the fifth within the occasion’s 20-year historical past for BMW.

Along with fellow Britons Dan Harper and Ben Tuck, BMW ace Max Hesse and Omani Al Faisal Al Zubair, Darren Leung collected outright victory and put an extra shine on his weekend by additionally successful the GT3 AM class.

The Century Motorsport-run Paradine Competitors machine he shared with Toby Sowery, Ahmad Al Harthy and Simon Traves completed fifth general, two laps away from its nearest rivals. 

“I’m very drained however extraordinarily joyful!” remarked bronze-graded Leung, the 2023 British GT champion, who like all his team-mates is a first-time Dubai winner. 

“I simply needed to maintain every little thing collectively in addition to I might. We knew the double victory was a risk because of the standard of each the groups, and each driver line-ups. 

“All the pieces wanted to come back into the suitable place, and it did. I’m very lucky and really grateful to everybody!”

BMW Motorsport boss Andreas Roos hailed a “flawless racing debut” for the GT3 EVO, which ran trouble-free.

“This was the proper begin to the brand new 12 months,” he mentioned. “Successful a 24-hour race with a brand-new automotive and securing a category win as effectively is much from a given.” 

Pure Rxcing recovered from a puncture that dropped it out of competition for victory to safe second with Thomas Preining, Harry King, Alex Malykhin and Alexey Nesov, regardless of having to drop its tempo and save gasoline to make the end. 

Manufacturing unit Porsche ace Preining set the race’s quickest lap, 0.641s quicker than anyone, throughout his fightback because the polesitting automotive beat Klaus Bachler, Loek Hartog, Anders Fjordbach, Stanislav Minsky and Thomas Kiefer’s Dinamic GT Porsche by simply 10.517s.

Elsewhere, ex-Method 1 drivers Vitaly Petrov and Sergey Sirotkin completed fourth as a part of an all-Russian SMP Racing entry fielded by German outfit Haupt Racing Crew. 

Two-time World Rally Championship conqueror Kalle Rovanpera completed seventeenth general and fifth within the Professional-Am class aboard Proton Huber Competitors’s Porsche, whereas British Touring Automobile champion Jake Hill’s bid for a category podium in Period Motorsport’s Ferrari 296 GT3 was ended when staff boss Dwight Merriman crashed out late on.