The French IMSA Performance MATMUT team has won the fifth anniversary edition of the Dunlop 24 Hours of Dubai. After 24 hours of racing at the 5.390 kilometres long Dubai Autodrome circuit, its driver pairing of Raymond Narac, Patrick Pilet and Marco Holzer had racked up a total of 608 laps with the team’s Porsche 911 GT3 RSR. Marco Holzer drove the car across the finish line. Second place was taken by the Japanese Petronas Syntium Team with the BMW Z4 CoupÃÂé, driven by Nobuteru Taniguchi, Masataka Yanigada, Farique Hairuman, Johannes Stuck and Hiroki Yoshida. The Al Faisal Racing team with Abdulaziz Al Faisal, Claudia HÃÂürtgen, Marko Hartung and Khaled Al Faisal took their BMW Z4 CoupÃÂé to third place overall.(More info at 24hdubai.com)
AND NASCAR fans found themselves with a small window of opportunity to follow Michael Waltrip and Marcos Ambrose in their Dubai debut. Ambrose, a veteran road racer and two-time Australian V8 Supercars champion prior to his switch to Sprint Cup, had the AF Corse Ferrari F430 in the thick of the battle for the lead during the opening stint. But when teammate Waltrip took over, he soon encountered a two-car crash on the front straight and the NASCAR veteran was forced to take avoiding action, resulting in a race-ending introduction to the pit wall. Waltrip reported via his Twitter account that he was uninjured. “Well that’s disappointing. 2 guys crashed on the straight [and] I got knocked into it. But I didn’t hurt so that’s good. Hi mom!”(SPEEDtv.com)(1-18-2010)
