CrowdStrike Racing by APR continued its strong run of form this afternoon, completing a weekend sweep with victory in a thrilling second race of the Asian Le Mans Series’ 4 Hours of Dubai double-header.
More impressive still, following a post-race penalty for the initially third placed Cetilar Racing, Algarve Pro racing completed a 1,2,3 sweep of the podium places, a unique occurrence in Asian Le Mans Series history and one seldom matched in ACO rules competition, and believed unique in non-factory LMP2 competition.
George Kurtz, Malthe Jakobsen and Louis Delétraz successfully added to yesterday’s triumph, heading home an Algarve Pro Racing 1-2-4 to headline a dominant display by the Portuguese team.
One of APR’s trio of ORECA 07 – Gibsons first claimed the lead on a Safety Car restart in the opening hour, when John Falb passed High Class Racing’s Jens Reno Moller aboard the #20 entry, and by the conclusion of the following pit stop cycle the team sat 1-2-3. A Safety Car in the second hour bunched the field back up, with all three APR entries leading on a single lap at the restart as Jakobsen surged to the front.
The Dane, outside of briefly losing the top spot to Enzo Trulli’s #25 APR ORECA after a round of pit stops at the halfway point, held this position until the penultimate round of pit stops, when championship leader Cetilar Racing short-fuelled its #47 ORECA to ensure Antonio Fuoco emerged ahead of Delétraz. A rare mistake from the Ferrari factory driver allowed the #4 ORECA back through, as Fuoco ran wide on the exit of Turn 9.
Differing tyre strategies once again led to an entertaining finale, as the #20 ORECA changed tyres at its penultimate pit stop, rather than the final stop like its rivals.
This vaulted Sami Meguetonuif into the effective lead, two seconds ahead of Delétraz, when he emerged from his final pit stop with 25 minutes to go, but the Swiss ace found a way through at Turn 11 with 19 minutes remaining as the pair negotiated GT traffic.
Delétraz then easily disposed of RD Limited’s off-strategy Tristan Vautier, before holding off the #25 entry of Dillmann to win by 1.638 seconds, claiming Algarve Pro Racing’s fourth consecutive Asian Le Mans Series victory at the Dubai Autodrome.
“These gentlemen were amazing,” Kurtz told Asian Le Mans Series TV post-race. “Did you see some of the passes they put on? It was unbelievable! We kept our heads, we did what we needed to do, we didn’t start where we wanted to but we finished where we wanted to and I couldn’t be prouder of the entire team.”
Dillmann had appeared quicker than Delétraz during the opening stage of the final stint, but the momentum shifted after the pair found their way past Meguetonuif, with Delétraz able to keep his teammate at arm’s length throughout the closing minutes.
Meguetonuif, meanwhile, fell back to fourth, after being passed by Fuoco for the final spot on the podium with two minutes remaining. That result though was reversed after the #47 crew were dealt a 10 second penalty for an issue with their refuelling rig, the rig unable to meet the required refuelling rate in two post-race tests.
That means that Fuoco, Roberto Lacorte and Charles Milesi will head to next weekend’s season finale double- header at Yas Marina equal on points with the CrowdStrike crew, with Dillmann, Trulli and defending champion Michael Jensen a further 16 points behind in third.
RD Limited finished fifth, after a puncture in the penultimate hour cost the French outfit a chance of victory. The issue put its #30 ORECA just outside of its fuel window, and Tristan Vautier was forced to dive to the pits in the closing minutes for a splash.
Sixth went to High Class Racing’s #49 ORECA, ahead of the #3 DKR Engineering and #6 United Autosports entries.
United’s pole-sitting #5 ORECA was an early casualty, as a gearbox fault saw Giorgio Roda slow from the lead on the restart from an opening lap Safety Car. The Italian dropped nine positions in a single lap before pitting for repairs, with the car briefly returning to the track for a shakedown before retiring.
LMP3 victory, in dramatic circumstances, went to 23Events Racing and its #71 Ligier JS P325 – Toyota of Terrence Woodward, Ibrahim Badawy and Matus Ryba.
An entertaining LMP3 battle saw the leading runners remain tightly packed throughout, with Ryba charging through from third to first in the final stint, only to briefly come to a halt out on track with 15 minutes to go and fall back to third.
The young Slovakian then caught back up to the battling #29 Forestier Racing by VPS and #17 CLX Motorsport Ligiers, which had run nose-to-tail for most of the final hour, before passing Forestier’s Luciano Morano for the win on the penultimate lap of the race.
“A few laps to the end, the car stopped on track, I thought ‘we are finished’, Ryba said. “I didn’t think we could finish the race. I guess I was lucky, and we could win it…this means a lot.”
The incident is understood to have been caused by the driver braking whilst still on the throttle, triggering a safertyt feature that kills the engine.
Forestier Racing by VPS held on to the runner-up spot after coming up just short of victory for the second successive race, with long-time leader CLX Motorsport finishing third.
Inter Europol Competition’s hopes of back-to-back LMP3 victories were over before they truly began following a problem on the lap to the grid for its #13 Ligier. The Polish outfit was still in the garage when the green flag was waved, eventually joining the race eight laps down. Alexander Bukhantsov, Chun Ting Chou and Henry Cubides Olarte finished seventh, ceding the championship lead to CLX Motorsport by a single point.
23Events Racing’s sister #23 Ligier looked well-placed to challenge for victory early on, having been the only LMP3 entry to serve both of its timed pit stops during a Virtual Safety Car in the first hour. An accident for Louis Stern in the second hour brought its race to an end, however, with the Ligier making significant contact with the barrier on the exit of Turn 4 after Stern lost control through the right-hander.
And in GT, Team WRT earned its maiden Asian Le Mans Series victory, with its #69 BMW M4 GT3 Evo of Anthony McIntosh, Parker Thompson and Dan Harper.
Thompson closed down the #87 Origine Motorsport Porsche 911 GT3 R (992) of leader Ye Hongli during the penultimate stint, reducing a 12-second margin to under four seconds. Strong pit work from the Belgian squad enabled Harper to emerge ahead of Laurin Heinrich, who had replaced Ye, and the BMW M factory driver held the Rolex 24 at Daytona winner at bay throughout the final hour.
Heinrich was unable to get close enough to attempt an overtake, with the winning margin just 0.881 seconds.
Antares Au, Klaus Bachler and Loek Hartog finished third aboard the #10 Manthey Porsche, whilst the #74 Kessel Racing Ferrari 296 GT3 extended its championship lead with fourth. Manthey’s #92 Porsche completed the top five.
The GT pole-sitting #37 QMMF by GetSpeed Mercedes-AMG GT3 EVO was the race’s first retirement, following an accident for Abdulla Ali Al-Khelaifi inside the opening 10 minutes. Al-Khelaifi was out front when Team Virage’s Ajith Kumar lost control of his #1 Ligier LMP3 under braking for Turn 14, spinning and striking the rear axle of Al-Khelaifi’s Mercedes-AMG side-on, with the damage forcing the AMG to retire on the spot.
The 2025/26 Asian Le Mans Series will conclude next weekend at the Yas Marina Circuit, with another pair of four-hour races.
