Second win in 3 races for 99 Racing, Al Harthy, Mazepin and Delatraz looking strong for the title.
99 Racing scored its second Asian Le Mans Series victory of the season in the 4 Hours of Dubai to extend its championship lead.
Sharing the No. 99 Oreca 07 Gibson, Louis Deletraz, Nikita Mazepin and Ahmad Al Harthy took top honors ahead of the No. 22 Proton Competition car of Julien Andlauer, Rene Binder and Giorgio Roda, adding to their win from the Sepang season opener.
The foundation for 99’s victory was an excellent opening two stints by Bronze-rated Al Harthy, who recovered from being tipped into a spin early on by Roda to take the lead before handing over to ex-Formula 1 racer Mazepin at the second round of stops.
Mazepin maintained a slim advantage through his double stint, with Deletraz taking over just before the field was closed up by a safety car period with one hour, 15 minutes to go as both the No. 30 Duqueine Oreca and the No. 77 D’station Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT3 stopped on track in separate incidents.
The race went green with a little over an hour to go with Deletraz heading the No. 3 DKR Engineering car of Tom Dillmann, who was passed in quick succession by both the No. 4 CrowdStrike Racing by APR car of Malthe Jakobsen and Andlauer.
At the final round of stops, swift pitwork by Proton got Andlauer back on track ahead of Jakobsen, and the French driver set about closing the gap to Deletraz, getting to within a second with around 20 minutes on the clock.
But Deletraz was able to hang on and start edging away from Andlauer in the closing stages, finally taking victory by 3.499 seconds.
Jakobsen brought home the No. 4 car he shared with George Kurtz and Colin Braun for the final spot on the podium, 6.520 seconds back, while the DKR car of Dillmann, Laurents Hoerr and Alexander Matschull was fourth.
The No. 90 TF Sport car enjoyed a lengthy spell in the lead early in the race, but was delayed by Salih Yoluc getting a drive-through penalty for track limits abuse just before the end of his stint and a later spin for Michael Dinan.
Charlie Eastwood passed a struggling Toby Sowery in the No. 25 Algarve Pro Racing car in the closing stages to salvage fifth.
The No. 55 Proton Competition Oreca that took pole in the hands of PJ Hyett could manage no better than seventh, with Hyett immediately slipping from first to fourth at the start before losing time later on with an off.
Cool Racing, Pure Rxcing Take Class Wins
In LMP3, Cool Racing took a comfortable victory with Alexander Bukhantsov and James Winslow sharing the No. 17 Ligier JS P320 Nissan as a duo.
The team’s victory followed its LMP2 entry being eliminated in a first-corner accident with another LMP3 car, the No. 65 Viper Niza Racing Ligier, which also claimed the No. 69 Optimum Motorsport McLaren 720S GT3 Evo.
Second, 16 seconds down on the Cool Racing car, went to the No. 2 CD Sport car after a late charge from Fabien Lavergne, ahead of the No. 20 High Class Racing entry.
Porsche squad Pure Rxcing took the spoils in the GT class after coming out on top in a tight race-long battle with AlManar Racing by GetSpeed.
It was the No. 7 GetSpeed Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo of Anthony Liu that controlled the first half of the race, with Alex Malykhin establishing the No. 91 Pure Rxcing Porsche 911 GT3 R in second, but the pendulum swung when the pair handed over to their respective co-drivers Al Faisal Al Zubair and Joel Sturm.
Sturm made what proved to be the winning overtake not long before the one and only safety car of the race, after which he handed over to Klaus Bachler, while Fabian Schiller took the wheel of the GetSpeed Mercedes for the run to the flag.
Bachler hung on by less than a second at the finish, while factory Ferrari racer Davide Rigon was able to battle his way up the order to grab the final spot on the podium in the No. 21 AF Corse Ferrari 296 GT3 he shared with Simon Mann and Francois Heriau.
The No. 42 Sainteloc Racing Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II was a notable non-finisher, Alban Varruti suffering technical problems having run second early in the race.
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