SPORTSCAR

Team Hong Kong Craft-Bamboo Racing’s line-up made up of Hong Kong athletes Jonathan Hui, Antares Au, Frank Yu and Kevin Tse had high expectations going into the 2020 Dubai 24 Hours, given their previous successes at the desert endurance race. Running a historic black and gold Mercedes-AMG livery, the team started the weekend from a strong position after a mega lap in qualifying by Jon Hui. Hui’s effort put the #69 Mercedes-AMG GT3 in 18th overall and 7th in the GT3-AM class, only 1.7 seconds off the overall pole position.

The Black Falcon Mercedes-AMG GT3 with starting number 4 and drivers Khaled Al Qubaisi from the UAE, Ben Barker from the UK, Hubert Haupt and Manuel Metzger from Germany and Jeroen Bleekemolen from The Netherlands was confirmed as the winner of the 15th edition of the Hankook 24H DUBAI. For the first time in the event’s history, the full duration couldn’t be completed. Heavy rainfall and standing water prompted race control to red-flag the race after 7h17m. In spite of the best efforts by the staff and officials of Dubai Autodrome, continuing rainfall throughout the night and the morning prevented any further action. It was decided not to continue the race for safety reasons, a decision fully accepted and unanimously applauded by everyone in the paddock and pit lane.

At 15.00 hrs local time, His Highness Sheikh Juma Bin Maktoum Al Maktoum waved the flag of the United Arab Emirates to send the 65-car field underway for the 15th running of the Hankook 24H DUBAI. Once again, the original endurance race in the Gulf region serves as the season opener of the 24H SERIES powered by Hankook and has attracted a packed field of GTs and touring cars featuring teams and drivers from all over the world.

German Maro Engel, a former winner of the FIA GT World Cup, hadn’t raced at Dubai Autodrome since 2017, but that didn’t prevent him from claiming the outright pole position for this week’s 15th running of the Hankook 24H DUBAI. A lap time of 1m57.490s at the 5.390km long Dubai Autodrome was enough for Engel to secure pole position with the Toksport WRT Mercedes-AMG GT3 (#777, Maro Engel / Luca Stolz / Philip Ellis / Patrick Assenheimer / Martin Konrad). It was also the first pole position for Mercedes-AMG in the Hankook 24H DUBAI since 2017.