24H Dubai: TCR victory for Autorama team 🎥

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For the first time, Autorama Motorsport from Wetzikon entered a VW Golf GTI TCR in cooperation with Wolf-Power Racing - and right off the bat it scored a major triumph in Dubai. Under the technical direction of Adrian Wolf and VLN GT4 champion Yannick Mettler as the driving spearhead, the Swiss car started from third position in the separate touring car field.

Constant and error-free
In the scramble of the first hours, Mettler dropped back to fifth place but easily kept up with the leaders of the twelve-car TCR class. Fabian Danz, Jérôme Ogay, Stefan Tanner and the German Marlon Menden did their job well after that and completed their stints without any mistakes.

Thanks to the consistency of the driver quintet, fast lap times during the night and problems with the competition, the Autorama Golf still moved up to first place late on Friday evening. When Audi's main rival really fizzled out, the Swiss squad only had to manage its lead to the finish.

Incredible success rate from Mettler
Yannick Mettler thus virtually seamlessly continued last year's winning streak, and did so in his first race with a front-wheel drive car. In addition to winning the 2018 VLN GTG4 title, the Lucerne native also celebrated class victory at the last two editions of the 24 Hours of Nürburgring, which was now followed by one at the 24 Hours of Dubai.

Yannick Mettler: "Unbelievable that it goes on like this right away. The decisive factor was everyone's professional work and the team spirit. It was especially nice not only for the new Autorama team, but also for Fabian Danz and me. In 2018, we narrowly missed out on victory with the BMW M235i Racing due to a defect. That's why we wanted to come back to win. Not an easy task in a class like TCR, but it worked out."

From last to second place
The race counted as the first round of the 24H TCE Series and the Championship of the Continents, which the Swiss team now leads. With Ronny Jost, who had won the last race in Texas in November 2018, and Julien Apothéloz, two more Swiss drivers stood on the podium as brilliant runners-up.

An unexpected result after Bas Koeten Racing's Cupra TCR had needed a repair stop early on with a faulty front left shock absorber. After that, the quartet of drivers supplemented by Loek Hartog and Oscar Graeper rode an impressive race to catch up, finishing only second, four laps behind the class winners. We will come back to their race separately.

Ungrateful fourth place for the Ineichen brothers
Of the many Swiss drivers who started in the GT classes, only Daniel Allemann made it to the podium. In eighth place overall, he finished second in the A6-Am class with the Porsche from Herberth Motorsport, which had finished first here two years ago. Until a defect in the fifth hour, the team was in second place overall.

The Hofor Mercedes with Michael Kroll and Chantal Prinz-Kroll as two of the five drivers retired during the night, as did the Lamborghini Huracan with Adrian Amstutz, which was leading for a time. The new BMW M4 GT4 of defending champion Martin Kroll fell victim to steering damage as a result of an accident.

As in the previous year, the best-placed Swiss in the overall standings were Rolf and Mark Ineichen in the Grasser Racing Lamborghini that started from pole position. After leading laps by pole setter Mirko Bortolotti and Christian Engelhart in the early stages, the green Huracan GT3 fell far behind due to suspension damage caused by a collision. The team's recovery brought it up to fourth position.

Double victory for Audi customer teams
Victory went to the Audi R8 LMS of Car Collection Motorsport with Parhofer, Haase, Vervisch and Breukers, which led for 560 of the 607 laps completed. Second place also went to an Audi with a gap of just under three minutes, followed by a Ferrari team.

Ricardo Feller, fifth last year, saw the chequered flag this time in sixth place with the Audi from BWT Mücke Motorsport.

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