Lance David Arnold was the fastest GT3 runner in the first official free practice session for Friday and Saturday’s Dubai 24 Hours. At the wheel of the #27 SPS Automotive Performance Mercedes SLS, he lapped the Dubai Autodrome in 1:59.858, almost seven-tenths up on second-quickest man Matt Griffin in the #888 Dragon Racing Ferrari 458. Another Ferrari completed the top three, in the shape of the #12 Scuderia Praha machine.
Quickest non-GT3 runner was car #210, the distinctive-looking BMW 1 Series-bodied GC10 V8 of the French Vortex squad, which circulated in 2:04.457. Dan Cammish, reigning Carrera Cup GB champion, was the fastest of the Porsche Cup entrants, getting the #63 MSG Motorsport car around in 2:04.9 exactly.
The latest GT3 cars from Audi and Mercedes going head-to-head is one of the big stories of this race. WRT, C Abt Racing, Car Collection Motorsport and Land Racing all have R8s entered, as does British outfit Optimum Motorsport (above). Audi factory ace Frank Stippler has been lent out to Optimum for the event, with the rest of the driving strength comprised of GT3 debutant Flick Haigh and former Triple Eight BMW team-mates Joe Osborne and Ryan Ratcliffe.
“This is the next generation of GT3 cars – it’s on another level,” said Osborne when asked about the car. “The only thing is we’ve had an overnight Balance of Performance change, including the rear ride height going up 14mm. That’s the biggest change I’ve seen in my career, normally it’s just a couple of mm. So we were pretty much back to square one with setup at the start of this session.”
Two familiar faces at the C Abt Racing squad were Isaac Tutumlu (who didn’t make the start here last year after a qualifying crash in the Glorax Racing Ferrari) and Formula E ace and former Rebellion WEC driver Daniel Abt. “I only had three laps before this session, so it’s a bit early to speak about the car,” said Abt, who’s making his GT3 debut here. “Formula E remains my main focus, but there’s time to do other stuff, so I’ll see what’s out there.”
Over at Land Motorsport, Audi factory drivers Christopher Mies and Marc Basseng are joined by Carsten Tilke (son of famed F1 circuit designer Hermann) and former Porsche junior Connor de Philippi. Finally, WRT is running its star driver Laurens Vanthoor alongside Stuart Leonard, Michael Meadows and veteran Frenchman Alain Ferte.
Vanthoor’s younger brother Dries is also present at Dubai in a Porsche 911 Cup car. “He’s really just getting experience of driving with lots of traffic on circuit and at night,” Laurens told us. “He’s good, still growing and learning but if he gets it all together he can be a good driver. He hasn’t really had a good opportunity to show his talent so far.
German squad Black Falcon is running two of the three new Mercedes in Dubai, with Britain’s Ram Racing (above) fielding the third. Tom Onslow-Cole, Paul White and Thomas Jaeger are in the cockpit once again, joined this time by Aston Martin GTE Am pairing Stuart Hall and Roald Goethe. AMG factory driver Jaeger is here as a one-off, while the other four make up Ram’s full-season 24H Series line-up.
Onslow-Cole said: “As well as some obvious visual differences, like the shorter wheelbase that makes it much more nimble in the corners and the removal of the gullwing doors, which were pleasing to the eye but had some practical drawbacks, there are many more subtle changes in the cockpit that are much more intuitive than the SLS and this is what makes it feel so natural and easy to drive.
“For example, there’s an internal blacklight and the switches now glow in the dark (something that’ll come in handy this weekend) and the centre console and switchgear are now angled towards the driver. You can tell that it’s been designed by drivers, for drivers.
“Manufacturers have worked hard to offer reliable, hard-working machines but their ability will always be capped through BoP. This has shifted the focus to getting the most out of the driver. The potential of the car is huge and it’s definitely not realised here in Dubai due to the BoP.”
All the Ferraris here are 458s, although Peter Kox confirmed that Scuderia Praha would have a new 488 in time for the next round of the 24H Series, the Mugello 12 Hours on 18-19 March. Local team Dragon Racing (above) meanwhile elected after this session to put its #888 458 into the Pro category and the #88 into Pro Am, giving the former car the opportunity to push for a limited number of ‘joker laps’ in excess of the benchmark time.
“Most of the cars have a Racelogic lap-time predictor, so as long as that system works, you’d have to really f*** up to go too fast,” said Barff. “If it fails you’re in trouble, though! The Audi and Mercedes have had BoP tweaks, but ours is unchanged.”
While the Lamborghini Huracan GT3 has a full season of racing under its belt with the factory Grasser Racing team, this season marks the second phase of the car’s career as the brand transitions to supporting customer teams. Konrad Motorsport has a single car here for Mark & Rolf Ineichen, Christian Engelhart, factory driver Fabio Babini and Franz Konrad himself. The squad will expand to two cars for the Daytona 24 Hours later this month and will also contest the Blancpain GT Series and selected IMSA races.
Veteran engineer Ricardo Divila, a familiar face at Nissan in recent years, is lending a hand at Konrad here in Dubai. “I haven’t had a race in three months so I needed to do something,” he told us. “The Lamborghini is very impressive – I see now why we had such a tough time beating them in Blancpain last season! This race can be a bit of a lottery with queuing for the refuelling station, but we’ll fumble through.”
Another Lamborghini, the #7 of Austrian outfit HB Racing, suffered a serious fire on Wednesday but after sterling work by the mechanics was back out in this session and looks set to make the race.
The Renaultsport R.S. 01 (above) was not originally conceived as a GT3 car, but this season is going to be running in GT3 championships with restrictions to bring it in line with the rest of the field. Belgian squad Boutsen Ginion is running the car here, while it also ran at December’s Gulf 12 Hours in the hands of Equipe Verschuur.
“The spec we’re running here isn’t the same as what Verschuur ran at Abu Dhabi,” Boutsen Ginion team co-ordinator Olivia Laine told us. “The organisers are constantly tweaking it – every session we come in and go through scrutineering and they change something else. We’re learning the car too at the same time, so it’s tough. The plan is to run the Renault in the full 24H Series if we can get the driver line-up. We’ll be doing the full Blancpain Endurance Series with Karim [Oijeh] in our new BMW M6 and hopefully the Sprint Series too if we can get the drivers.”
This afternoon sees another free practice session for all classes, which segues straight into qualifying. A night practice session rounds off Thursday’s action.
Stephen Errity
Images: Peter May
