Dubai, Feb 14th 2021 – The #26 G-Drive Racing Aurus 01 Gibson of Rene Binder, Yifei Ye and Ferdinand Habsburg have dominated to take another convincing win in Race 2 of the 2021 Asian Le Mans season.
A clean start saw the sister #25 G-Drive Racing Aurus lead, before Rene Binder moved through to the front of the field. A three-car battle for podium positions broke out, with Arjun Maini capitalising on in the #64 Racing Team India Oreca 07 Gibson to move into second, and then first before a pit stop gave the race back to the Russian-flagged outfit.
With a strong lead, not even a stop and go penalty could prevent the trio taking victory ahead of the #25 G-Drive Racing Aurus 01 Gibson of John Falb Franco Colapinto and Rui Pinto de Andrade and Matthias Kaiser Simon Trummer and Nicki Thiim in the #5 Phoenix Racing Oreca 07 Gibson.
Saturday’s LMP2 Am Class winners, #18 Era Motorsport Oreca 07 Gibson, struggled early after a lock up and an unplanned visit to the pits, but Andreas Laskaratos, Kyle Tilley and Dwight Merriman overcame a tough day to keep control of LMP2 Am from #11 Eurointernational Ligier JS P217 Gibson of Neale Muston and John Corbett.
The dominance of #23 United Autosports Ligier JS P320 Nissan of Rory Penttinen, Wayne Boyd and Manuel Maldonado in LMP3 continued. The team made it two wins from two races. A final lap issue for #63 DKR Engineering Duqueine M30-D08 Nissan of Jean Glorieux and Laurents Hörr saw them drop from second to fourth, giving the position to Ian Loggie, Robert Wheldon, and Andrew Meyrick in #2 United Autosports Ligier JS P320 Nissan. The #8 Nielsen Racing Ligier JS P320 Nissan of Rodrigo Sales and Matthew Bell rounded out the podium positions.
It was a day to forget for #4 Phoenix Racing Ligier JS P320 Nissan of Jan-Erik Slooten, Leo Weiss and Vincent Kolbafter a multicar incident ended their day and caused a full course yellow. Pain also for the #9 Nielsen Racing Ligier JS P320 Nissan which suffered a failed suspension in the last hour of the race.
In GT, battles broke out early for the minor podium positions before the tensions spiked. The #97 Oman Racing by TF was penalised after contact with yesterday’s class winner, #99 Precote Herberth Motorsport, before an incident between #60 Formula Racing Ferrari 488 GT3 and #34 Walkenhorst Motorsport BMW M6 GT3. This prompted a full course yellow to collect the stranded BMW, with the #60 given a drive-through penalty for causing the incident.
Redemption came for #40 GPX Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R of Julien Andlauer, Axcil Jefferies and Alain Ferté with victory in GT after a dominant performance in Race 1 saw them finish fourth following a late-race spin and post-race time penalty. Nothing was able to stop the Dubai-based team taking the class win at their home event today ahead of #55 Rinaldi Racing Ferrari 488 GT3 of Rino Mastronardi, David Perel and Davide Rigon. Alexander West, Maxime Martin and Valentin Hasse-Clot in the #88 Garage 59 Aston Martin Vantage AMR GT3 finished third.
Control of GT Am by the #66 Rinaldi Racing Ferrari 488 GT3 of Christian Hook, Manuel Lauck and Patrick Kujala continued as the team became double winners in Class. The #27 Kessel Racing Ferrari 488 GT3 of Giorgio Roda, Francesco Zollo and Tim Kohmann finished second ahead of Henry Walkenhorst, Jorg Breuer and Sami Matti Trogen in the #35 Walkenhorst Motorsport BMW M6 GT3.
2021 Asian Le Mans Series – Race 2 – Dubai Autodrome – Short Race Highlight
The 2021 Asian Le Mans Series now head to Abu Dhabi for the second half to the season – Races 3 and 4 will be held next Friday and Saturday on the Yas Marina Circuit!
4 Hours of Abu Dhabi – 2021 Asian Le Mans Series Schedule:
Wednesday 17th February 2021
18:00 – 18:55 Testing
20:00 – 20:55 Testing
22:00 – 22:55 Testing
Thursday 18th February 2021
10:10 – 12:10 Testing
14:30 – 16:00 Free Practice 1
18:30 – 20:00 Free Practice 2
Friday 19th February 2021
09:40 – 10:45 Qualifying Race 3
11:25 – 12:30 Qualifying Race 4
16:00 – 20:00 Race 3
Saturday 20th February 2021
16:10 – 20:10 Race 4
