Muscat – An unscheduled pit stop to rectify a brake issue cost Al Manar Racing’s Al Faisal al Zubair and the British racing duo of Chris Froggatt and Ben Tuck potential victory in a pulsating 15th edition of the Gulf 12 Hours at the Yas Marina circuit in Abu Dhabi, UAE, on Sunday night.
It could so easily have been a monumental victory for the Ferrari 296 GT3 trio, who led the race after nine hours and dominated the opening session before a five-second speeding penalty in the pit lane and the pit stop cost them valuable time. They still delivered a mightily impressive result for Al Manar Racing and the Dubai-based Dragon Racing team, finishing in second place.
The trio completed 346 laps of the demanding 5.281km Yas Marina circuit, narrowly behind the triumphant Capital RT by Motopark Mercedes trio of Denis Remenyako, Adam Christodoulou and Mikhail Aleshin.
Grove Racing by Getspeed’s father and son duo of Stephen and Brenton Grove and Jules Gounon rounding off the podium places in a Mercedes-AMG GT3, albeit a lap behind their rivals. Optimum Motorsport and Inward Motorsport wrapped up the top five with 14 cars finishing the race.
With mixed feelings after the finish, Al Zubair said: “Bittersweet. Second place is great for the first race in the Ferrari. I am very happy with it. Dragon did a great job all weekend. It’s just a bit tough knowing that we were the car to beat the whole weekend. We led at the eight-hour mark and it was unfortunate that we had a brake fluid leak and we had to change the calipers.
“The car was very nice. I enjoyed it a lot. It was very different to the BMW and the Mercedes but I am very happy overall. High-speed feels a lot more aero and the driveability was more enjoyable, I would say. I felt comfortable from the get-go and had good teammates with me. As a team, we did a great job. All these endurance races are full push all the time. We approach them as sprints.”
Froggatt took the wheel for the first time at the start of the race and was in podium contention throughout his stint before handing over to Al Zubair with the Al Manar by Dragon car holding fifth place. Al Zubair settled in quickly and managed to find his way to the front of the field.
With the yellow flag raised and the safety car on the track with 2hr 14min of the opening eight-hour stint remaining, Al Zubair was at the helm of the Ferrari and led the entire field from Winward Racing’s Gabriele Piana and third-placed Denis Remenyako in the Capital RT by Motopark Mercedes.
Racing resumed with 155 laps completed and Al Zubair began to pull away from Piana before pitting after 160 laps to be replaced by Tuck. He settled into second place behind Piana with just under two hours in the clock, but regained the lead when Marvin Dienst replaced Piana in the Windward Racing hotseat.
The Briton went on to finish the opening 223-lap section with a 12.931-second advantage over Dienst to give the Al Manar Racing by Dragon trio the bragging rights after eight hours.
The Herberth Motorsport Porsche retired after 25 laps and was joined six laps later by the second of the Winward Racing entries and Inception Racing after 147 laps.
The starting order for the second four-hour part of the race was determined by the finishing order for part one. Therefore, Froggatt started on pole for Al-Manar Racing by Dragon with Winward Racing in second, ahead of Capital RT by Motopark, Grove Racing by Getspeed and Optimum Motorsport. Sixteen of the 20 starters completed part one.
A speeding penalty proved costly for the Al Manar Racing by Dragon trio in the second section and, despite Froggatt leading through the restart, they slipped back to third after the brake pit stop and then moved back up to second place with Al Zubair and Tuck driving through the tense final two sessions.
A pair of open one-hour practice sessions got competitive proceedings underway on Friday. Al Manar Racing by Dragon ran the Ferrari 296 GT3 for 17 laps in the opener and carded a best run of 1min 54.403sec. The trio were third quickest in session two, albeit with a slower quickest lap of 1min 55.381sec.
