Two weeks after James Allen snatched victory in the Daytona 24 Hours away from Algarve Pro Racing in famous fashion, he led his APR team-mates John Falb and Kyffin Simpson to a win in the 2023 Asian Le Mans Series season-opening 4 Hours of Dubai.
46 cars lined up in formation to take the green flag and the start of this first race of the season, which represents the last chance for the champions of all three classes to earn an automatic entry into the centennial running of the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Two scratches – the #54 Dinamic GT Porsche 911 GT3 R and #61 TF Sport Aston Martin Vantage GT3 – were the result of incidents earlier in the weekend.
At the start, pole sitter Charles Crews took the early advantage in the all-American crewed #43 Inter Europol Competition Oreca LMP2 07, ahead of the #3 DKR Engineering Oreca of Salih Yoluc in second. Crews’ early charge was only interrupted by the first Full Course Yellow of the race, involving a potential LMP2 class contender. Alexandre Coigny was trying to negotiate traffic at turn five when he was clipped by the #77 D’station Racing Aston Martin of Satoshi Hoshino.
This sent the #37 COOL Racing Oreca spinning out, and Coigny brought the car to a stop. An FCY was declared, and Coigny limped his rattling car back to the pits slowly. Nicolas Lapierre and Malthe Jakobsen would eventually salvage eighth overall, three laps down. After the FCY was withdrawn, Yoluc closed to within a second of Crews before the American stretched out the margin through traffic – to just under 15 seconds after the first hour.
The tables turned after the first round of routine pit stops, which included driver changes after every team in LMP2 started with their Bronze-graded drivers. Ayhancan Guven took over the #3, and Christian Bogle took over the #43 for the middle stint. Guven pounced as Bogle was stuck behind one of Inter Europol’s LMP3 cars, taking the lead decisively and pulling away while Bogle struggled to find his footing – and even had a scare during his next pit stop when his car was momentarily pushed back into the garage.
There was a second FCY for debris on the circuit, one hour and 35 minutes into the race. It was after this stage where the #25 Algarve Pro Racing Oreca entered the picture. Falb did spin after the first FCY restart, but he regained his composure and battled with fellow American gentleman driver Rodrigo Sales in the #24 Nielsen Racing Oreca for most of their opening stint.
Falb then handed off to Simpson, who rapidly closed the gap to his struggling Indy NXT rival Bogle and overtook him just before half-distance. The young prospect from the Cayman Islands was now 25 seconds back of race leader Guven for the overall lead. Simpson put in a monster shift behind the wheel to close that 25 second gap down to just seven seconds by the time their stints ended.
With less than 90 minutes to go, Algarve Pro Racing and DKR Engineering had made their final driver changes with Allen getting in the #25 and Eastwood in the #3. Quick pit work helped Allen take the lead from Eastwood. About fifteen minutes later, the third FCY was declared, for a stopped GT car. Allen brought the #25 into the pits with most of the LMP2 front runners, but Eastwood came in a lap later and crucially, before the FCY was removed. This allowed Eastwood to jump ahead of Allen on track.
The Irish driver was able to build a small gap to the Australian chasing behind him, up to as much as five seconds – but with Allen still very much in contention, he brought it back down to just under two seconds. Once again, pit strategy would decide the winner, Allen made his final pit stop after 100 laps, and Eastwood came in a lap later. The Algarve Pro Racing mechanics were able to deliver a much faster pit stop, and Allen emerged with an eight second lead in the final half hour!
That proved to be enough as Algarve Pro Racing took victory in the LMP2 class by 9.034 seconds, completing 118 laps in just over four hours. It was the team’s first victory in LMP2 since 2021, and the first win for all three drivers. Most important are the 25 points with which they’ve opened their 2023 accounts in their bid for an automatic qualifier at Le Mans.
In the final minutes, Eastwood had to fend off 2016 Le Mans overall winner and WEC title holder Neel Jani for second place. Jani erased a seven-second deficit in the last half hour aboard the white #98 99 Racing Oreca, but Eastwood held on by 0.334 seconds to consolidate second place for DKR Engineering.
99 Racing’s third-place effort culminatedin a bizarre 48 hour saga where the team cycled through two rejected candidates for their compulsory Bronze-graded driver before they landed on Portuguese driver Gonçalo Gomes, minutes before the start of prototype qualifying. Gomes’ only mistake in a short-notice first race was a pit lane speeding penalty, one which 99 Racing overcame as the race progressed.
The gold #24 Nielsen Racing Oreca of Sales, Mathias Beche, and Ben Hanley finished in fourth ahead of the two United Autosports cars, the #22 (Philip Hanson/Paul di Resta/Jim McGuire) in fifth, and the #23 (Yasser Shahin/Garnet Patterson/Oliver Jarvis) in sixth, despite starting the race a lap down when a sudden electrical issue wouldn’t allow them to take the formation lap. The #44 ARC Bratislava Oreca (Miro Konopka/Nico Pino/Laszlo Toth) gritted their way to seventh ahead of the #37 COOL Racing Oreca.
And commiserations are in order for the #43 Inter Europol Racing crew. 18-year-old Nolan Siegel was battling hard with Jani for position after nightfall, and might have had a chance to salvage a podium for Crews and Bogle. But with less than half an hour to go, a suspension issue forced them to retire just short of the goal. Their consolation is a chance to try again from pole tomorrow in Race 2.
LMP3 saw a come-from-behind victory by the #29 MV2S Racing Ligier JS P320 of Jerome de Sadeleer, Fabien Lavergne, and Viacheslav Gutak who took the team’s first-ever Asian Le Mans Series win in the last 15 minutes of the race.
From the start, the pole-winning #11 WTM by Rinaldi Racing Duquiene D08 (Torsten Kratz/Leonard Weiss/Nico Varrone) was the car to beat in its class. But less than an hour into Kratz’ opening stint, his car was stuck in gear and the early favourites had to take their car to the garage. After one lap back out on track, the issue was still not remedied. The WTM/Rinaldi Duquiene spent more than two and a half hours in the pits and garage, failing to complete enough laps to be classified.
Gutak had an eventful opening stint, first making contact with the #9 Graff Racing Ligier and then picking up a drive-through penalty for speeding in the pits.
Full Course Yellows and long stints for some of the Bronze drivers also made it difficult to get a read on who the winner would be, but after two and a half hours of racing, the #8 Graff Racing Ligier of Fabrice Rossello, Xavier Lloveras, and François Heriau) had a lead of over five seconds to the #29 MV2S Ligier, which had now recovered excellently after a great stint from De Sadeleer.
Then, after the third FCY, the #4 Nielsen Racing Ligier of Tony Wells and Matt Bell, which started in seventh, jumped to the lead in the class. Bell led Lloveras by nine seconds into the final hour of the race, and now Lavergne in the #29 MV2S Racing Ligier was third, 17 seconds off the lead.
With 50 minutes to go, Nielsen Racing’s LMP3 crew experienced heartache when a busted starter forced them back into the garage for over 15 minutes, knocking them out of contention for the win. Lloveras now led the race, but he was starting to feel the pressure from Lavergne. In the closing laps, the two were running tail-to-nose, and then with 12 minutes left, Lavergne overtook Lloveras for the class lead.
Both cars needed a final pit stop to get to the end of the race, but Lavergne held the advantage and MV2S Racing held on to win by 3.825 seconds over the #8 Graff Racing car.
An all-Ligier LMP3 podium was completed by the #1 CD Sport Ligier (Michael Jensen/Nick Adcock/Valdemar Eriksen) in third, with the second Rinaldi Racing entry, the #55 (Lorcan Hanafin/Mathias Luethen/Jonas Ried) finishing as the top Duquiene in fourth.
The #73 Inter Europol Competition Ligier (John Corbett/Alexander Bukhantsov/James Winslow) finished fifth in class, followed by the #5 DKR Engineering Duquiene (Tom van Rompuy/Valentino Catalano) in sixth. COOL Racing’s tough day extended to their LMP3 effort, when a rear suspension issue past half distance took the #17 Ligier (Cedric Oltramare/Adrien Chila/Marcos Siebert) out of podium contention. They finished nine laps down, 14th in class, one place behind the stricken #4 Nielsen Racing car.
The #34 Walkenhorst Motorsport BMW M4 GT3 of Chandler Hull, Nicky Catsburg, and Thomas Merrill converted pole into a dominant GT class victory, despite needing a splash of fuel to get to the end with less than ten minutes left in the race.
But not even that late pit stop could deny the Walkenhorst crew a well-earned victory: They led 97 out of 112 laps they completed as the GT class winner, and with the bonus point for pole position, they come away from the evening with a perfect 26 points. It began with a strong first stint from Hull, one of the few non-Bronze drivers that elected to take the start in the GT class.
Another was last-minute appointment Ollie Millroy in the #72 HubAuto Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3, who was running second after the first hour of racing.
A collision between the #66 Bullitt Racing Aston Martin (Valentin Haase-Clot/Jacob Riegel/Martin Berry) and the #16 GetSpeed Mercedes (Bihuang Zhou/Zhongwei Wang/Alexandre Imperatori) led to the race’s first retirement. Wang collided with Berry and the black and red Aston Martin suffered damage to the front and rear. It was a tough task just for the Singapore-based Australian to limp back to the pits, and the damage proved to be terminal.
Hull led until just past the end of the first hour when he handed off to Merrill, the reigning Trans-Am TA2 champion tapped as a late substitute for Richard Heistand. Stefano Constantini had spun out while trying to hold third place early in the race, but he eventually got his #21 AF Corse Ferrari 488 GT3 back up the order and cycled to the lead of the race after the #34 Walkenhorst BMW’s first stop.
Then, just as Constantini was nearing the end of his obligatory 90 minutes at the wheel, he picked up a drive-through penalty for exceeding track limits after his warning. Co-drivers Simon Mann and Miguel Molina would go on to a ninth place finish.
Herberth Motorsport’s fleet of four Porsches pitted before the first FCY and then cheekily drove through the pit lane during the FCY to gain track position, which allowed the #91 Pure Rxcing-entered car of Alex Malykhin to lead after the #7 Haupt Racing Team Mercedes of Martin Konrad pitted. But once Malykhin pitted and was relieved by Joel Sturm, Merrill in the #34 Walkenhorst BMW retook the top spot.
Florian Scholze handed off the #10 GetSpeed Mercedes to AMG ace Raffaele Marciello, and the Swiss driver made a tear through the field to catch up to Sturm and take third place in class. Al Faisal al Zubair, now at the wheel of the #7 HRT Mercedes, had his work cut out for him to hold off Marciello for several laps. The Omani driver held his nerve, but conceded the place with 90 minutes left.
Liam Talbot was almost set to hand off the #72 HubAuto Mercedes to Jules Gounon, but then the #72 came to a stop at turn eight, bringing out the third Full Course Yellow of the race. The HubAuto Racing team retired less than 90 minutes from the goal.
Merrill pitted during this FCY and passed the baton to Catsburg without conceding the lead of the race. Catsburg had a five-second advantage to the #10 GetSpeed Mercedes now piloted by Fabian Schiller, Luca Stolz was now third in the #7 HRT Mercedes, and Harry King was now fourth in the #91 Pure Rxcing Porsche.
With 22 minutes left, GetSpeed nearly threw away a podium by violating the minimum pit stop time on their last routine stop. They picked up a one-second stop/go penalty, elevating Stolz to second behind Catsburg, now nearly half a minute up front in the class lead.
But with less than nine minutes left, the black and blue BMW entered the pits for a splash of fuel. Catsburg exited the pits, and Stolz was able to briefly get by before the BMW got back around the Mercedes by the end of the lap. And ironically, Stolz needed to take a splash-and-go with three minutes left on the clock himself, which took the black Haupt Racing Mercedes out of second place.
The #10 GetSpeed Mercedes of Marciello, Schiller, and Scholze came through to take the second place they’d nearly cost themselves, ahead of the #7 HRT Mercedes of Al Zubair, Stolz, and Konrad in third. Catsburg took the chequered flag and won by over 15 seconds.
A trio of Herberth Porsches finished fourth through sixth, led by the #91 of Malykhin, Sturm, and King from the #20 (Nicolas Leutwiler/Mikkel Pedersen/Matteo Cairoli) and the #99 (Ralf Bohn/Axcil Jeffries/Robert Renauer).
The #6 HRT Mercedes (Arjun Maini/Frank Bird/Michael Blanchemain) finished seventh; three Ferraris rounded out the points finishers with the #60 Formula Racing Ferrari (Johnny Laursen/Conrad Laursen/Nicklas Nielsen) in eighth ahead of the #21 AF Corse Ferrari, and the #19 Leipert Motorsport Lamborghini Huracán GT3 EVO (Gabriel Rindone/Brendon Leitch/Marco Mapelli).
A second helping of the Asian Le Mans Series 4 Hours of Dubai begins tomorrow at 3:00 PM GST (Local time).
