24H Dubai: Early season highlight 🎥
START TO THE 2020 24H SERIES For the 15th time, the 24-hour race in Dubai will start on Friday. Among the participants are numerous ambitious Swiss teams and drivers. The short video presents the race calendar of the 24H Series 2020, the highlight of which already takes place this week. The 24 Hours of Dubai was held for the first time 14 years ago, [...]
The short video introduces the race calendar of the 24H Series 2020, the highlight of which is already this week.
The Dubai 24 Hours first took place 14 years ago, and they are now one of the classics in endurance racing. The initiators were Dutch amateur drivers Ivo Breukers and Gerrie Willems, who founded their agency Creventic for the purpose of organizing endurance races. This ultimately led to the two current championships called 24H Series Continents and 24H Series Europe.
Several Swiss overall winners in 14 competitions
The marathon in Dubai is both the early season highlight and the flagship event of the 24H Series. Every year, it attracts renowned teams and drivers from all over the world to the starting line. Nevertheless, the main focus is on the grassroots participants who form the backbone of this private event series.
Stadler Motorsport from Reinach AG was the only Swiss team to take overall victory in 2014. The drivers included Rolf and Mark Ineichen, Adrian Amstutz and Marcel Matter.
In 2017, Daniel Allemann from Solothurn, who has been driving for Herberth Motorsport for years, also took victory honors in a Porsche. In the first two races of 2006 and 2007, Philipp Peter, a dual Swiss-Austrian citizen who lives and grew up in Ticino, was part of the winning BMW team from Duller Motorsport.
Audi debut of the Ineichen brothers
The 15th edition of the Hankook 24H Dubai sees 52 GT cars and 22 touring cars on the start list. In total, the GT3 class competing for overall victory, divided into a Pro and an Am category, includes 22 sports cars with customer teams from Audi, BMW, Lamborghini, Mercedes-AMG and Porsche.
In their entry with an Audi R8 LMS instead of a Lamborghini, the Ineichen brothers can justifiably hope for their second Dubai triumph. Their team WRT from Belgium won the 2016 race and they have two very fast team partners in Audi GT factory drivers Mirko Bortolotti and Kelvin van der Linde.
Only always German makes
Daniel Allemann continues to rely on the proven German Herberth team, Blancpain AM champion Adrian Amstutz on Barwell Motorsport. Amstutz won at the Barcelona 24 Hours in 2019 with the British team's Lamborghini. So far, however, only teams with German GT3 cars have decided the Dubai race...
Under the bid of Dinamic Motorsport from Italy, the Italo-Swiss Roberto Pampanini, Mauro Calamia, Ivan Jacoma and Stefano Monaco will compete together for the first time in Dubai. Apart from the technical defect shortly before the end of the race, their debut with a new Porsche 911 GT3 in December at the 12H Abu Dhabi went very promisingly.
In the GT4 class, Rahel Frey joins the German Audi customer team Heide Motorsport as a semi-pro driver. Her direct opponents include the two BMW M4s of Hofor Racing by Bonk Motorsport. Taking turns at the wheel of one of their two cars are Hofor team owners and brothers Martin and Michael Kroll from Aargau.
Autorama and TOPCAR fight for TCR victory
The TCR class is also very strong with 16 vehicles from Audi, Cupra, Honda, Peugeot, Seat and Volkswagen. As reported, Autorama Motorsport by Wolf-Power Racing is tackling the title defense in Dubai with two VW Golf GTI TCR and Yannick Mettler as spearhead.
TOPCAR sport from Uetendorf, which is fielding its Cupra with personnel and strategic support from Bas Koeten Racing (NL), is in a top driving position. The driver quartet is made up of Antti Buri (FIN), one of the world's fastest TCR drivers ever, his compatriot Kari-Pekka Laaksonen, 24H Europe champion Fabian Danz and team boss Ronny Jost. For budget reasons, Julien Apothéloz, who finished second with Jost in a Cupra driven by the Dutch last year, has to miss out.
Premiere for Xavier and Born
The early season opener will be a special experience for two Swiss youngsters. Gustavo Xavier, finalist in the 2017 Young Driver Challenge, will start his first 24-hour race in the Arab Emirate. Thanks to a request at short notice, he finds shelter in Team fun-M Motorsport on the BMW M240i Racing he knows from his first VLN races. And for Miklas Born, who is only 17 years old, Dubai with Autorama Motorsport is his first ever car race.
Live on the Internet
The 2020 Dubai 24 Hours will get underway on Friday, January 10, at 3 p.m. local time (12 p.m. Swiss time). The entire race and the action on the practice days can be seen from January 8 in the Livestream be tracked on the homepage.
