Abu Dhabi: Another podium for Trummer 🎥
CONCLUSION OF THE ASIAN SERIES After two third-place finishes in Dubai, Simon Trummer and his LMP2 partners from Phoenix Racing climbed the podium again at the Asian Le Mans Series finale in Abu Dhabi. The highlights of Saturday's final race. The green Phoenix Oreca and the yellow Kessel Ferrari are well in the picture. Both race wins at the Yas Marina Circuit [...]
The highlights of Saturday's final race. The green Phoenix Oreca and the yellow Kessel Ferrari are well in the picture.
Both race wins at the Yas Marina Circuit with finishes under floodlights went to the duo of Sean Gelael and Tom Blomqvist in the JOTA Oreca-Gibson from England.
The title and thus a guaranteed grid spot at Le Mans were secured by the Austrians René Binder and Ferdinand Habsburg, who won twice in Dubai, and China's Yifei Ye in the Auris-Gibson of G-Drive Racing. In Abu Dhabi, the new Asian champions finished 2nd and 4th.
Turbulent Friday race
At Phoenix Racing, GT ace Kelvin van der Linde took over from Nicki Thiim, supporting Matthias Kaiser from Liechtenstein and Simon Trummer from Bern in the #5 Oreca 07. With two strong qualifying sessions and grid positions 2 and 3, the South African laid the foundation for the good rankings at his LMP2 debut.
In the first of the two 4-hour races on Friday, the trio had to show strong nerves. A collision "with one of many overtaxed amateur drivers," as Simon Trummer put it, and the subsequent change of front did not allow more than fourth place in the end.
Three times on the podium
With a consistently strong performance, Trummer and Kaiser had initially defended third place in Saturday's final race. Van der Linde took over at the end and seamlessly continued the good lap times achieved despite a defective traction control system, thus securing the team's third third place in four races.
Phoenix Racing occupies fourth place overall in the team and driver standings, which the team boss can live with, although the rookies had aimed for more.
Ernst Moser: "We can be very satisfied with our debut in LMP. We were on the podium in three of the four races and were always among the top four teams. That's not a matter of course at this level. A big thanks goes to the team here, who worked tirelessly and made these successes possible."
Joy at Kessel Racing
The Kessel Racing team was also able to celebrate. The Ferrari 488 GT3 driven by Takeshi Kimura, Come Ledogar and Mikkel Jensen won the second race in the 19-car GT class.
Boiler customers Giorgio Roda, Francesco Zollo and Tim Kohmann took second overall in the separate GT-Am classification with their Ferrari.
