Images by Mike Widdowson
A comeback drive that thrusts the team into the lead to take the win in race 2 of the series.
After starting the race in pole position, a spin on the opening lap of the race dropped the to the back of the grid. A change in pit stop strategy saw the Polish team pit for fuel after 30 minutes into the race and their comeback resumed. Hard fought battles and another incredible drive from 18 year old Siegel, including an incredible late-race pass on the #3 DKR Engineering Oreca 07, sealed the team first place.
Salih Yoluc, Charlie Eastwood and Ayhancan Guven in the #3 DKR finished second, ahead of the #24 Nielsen Racing Oreca 07 Gibson of 2022 champions Rodrigo Sales, Ben Hanley and Mathias Beche.
A strong and consistent drive from fifth for the #5 DKR Engineering Duqueine M30 D08 Nissan of Tom Van Rompuy and Valentino Catalano saw them take class honours. A pass by Xavier Lloveras in the final minutes of the race saw the #8 Graff Racing Racing Ligier JS P320 Nissan shared with Fabrice Rossello and Francois Heriau move into second place. Race 1 winners, the #29 MV2S Racing Ligier JS P320 Nissan of Jerome De Sadeleer, Viacheslav Gutak and Fabien Lavergne, finished third.
Heartbreak hit the #18 360 Racing of Frederic Jousset, Sebastian Alvarez and Ross Kaiser. A valiant drive by Alvarez saw the team move from the back of the entire field to first in LMP3 class in the first 45 minutes of the race, before a failure served them a DNF.
Pole sitter #11 WTM by Rinaldi Racing Duqueine M30 D08 Nissan of Torsten Kratz, Leonard Weiss and Nicolas Varrone also had a rollercoaster race, with the team in the garage by the end of the first hour. However, a hard fight back saw them finish narrowly off the podium positions in fourth.
Back-to-back pole positions and race victories saw the #34 Walkenhorst Motorsport BMW M4 GT3 of Chandler Hull, Nicky Catsburg and Thomas Merrill completed a dominant weekend for the team in Dubai.
Raffaele Marciello, Fabian Schiller and Florian Scholze backed up their Race 1 second place in the #10 GetSpeed Mercedes AMG GT3 after a pass in the final 10 minutes of the race sealed the position ahead of the #21 AF Corse Ferrari 488 GT3 of Stefano Constantini, Simon Mann and Miguel Molina.
Malaysian entry, Viper Niza Racing, also suffered a heartbreaking day with a drive through for track limit violations early in the race, before a race ending accident for the #65 Aston Martin Vantage AMR GT3.
The Asian Le Mans Series continues next week with 4 Hours of Abu Dhabi Race 3 and 4 from Yas Marina Circuit, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates February 17 – 19.
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