The first endurance race of the 2014 motorsports season has reached it's halfway point and has already seen a massive development.
The two-time defending race winning #1 Team Abu Dhabi by Black Falcon Mercedes-Benz driven by Jeroen Bleekemolen, Bernd Schneider, Khaled Al Qubaisi and Andreas Simonsen has experienced a devastating electrical failure after leading the race by three laps at one point. The team now finds themselves in twenty-first, sixteen laps back.
The #30 Ram Racing Ferrari of Jan Magnussen, Johnny Mowlen, Matt Griffin and Cheerag Ayra lead the #4 Fach Auto Tech Porsche of Sebastian Asch, Martin Ragginger, Connor de Phillippi and Otto Klohs by a little over a lap. The #76 SX Team Schubert BMW of Paul Dalla Lana, Dirk Werner, Claudia Hürtgen, Bill Auberlen and Dane Cameron is third, two laps back.
The #20 Stadler Motorsport Porsche of Christian Engelhart, Mark Ineichen, Rolf Ineichen, Marcel Matter and Adrian Amstutz is fourth with the #2 Black Falcon Mercedes driven by Bleekemolen, Al Qubaisi, Abdulaziz Bin Turki Al Faisal, Hubert Haupt and Adam Christodoulou rounding out the top five.
The #38 Münnich Motorsport Mercedes of René Münnich, Marc Basseng and Rob Huff were leading earlier in the race but have dropped down to sixth. The top A6-Am car is the #88 Dragon Racing Ferrari driven by Stuart Hall, Rob Barff, Dan Norris-Jones and Bassam Kronfli in seventh. The pole-sitting V8 Racing Corvette of Nicky Pastorelli, Wolf Nathan, Danny Werkman, Rick Abresch and Alex Van 't Hoff is eighth.
The #458 GT Corse Ferrari is ninth with Pierre Kaffer, Pierre Ehret, Marco Seefried, Alexander Mattschull and Vadim Kogay making up it's driver line-up. Rounding out the top ten is the #27 Walkenhorst Motorsport BMW of Henry Walkenhorst, Ralf Oeverhaus, Daniela Schmid, Jens Richter and Claudia Hürtgen.
The top Porsche 997 GT3 Cup car is the #44 Black Falcon entry of Arturo Devigus, Andres Fjordbach, Will Friedrichs, Burkard Kaiser and Vladimir Lunkin.
The #123 Nissan GT Academy 370Z of Lucas Ordóñez, Miguel Faisca, Florian Strauss, Stanislav Aksenov and Nikolas McMillen lead the SP2 class.
Other class leaders are the #154 Nova Race Ginetta G50 (SP3), #62 JR Motorsport BMW (A5), #47 Motorsport Services SEAT (A3T), #57 LAP57 Racing Team Honda (A2) and #125 Recy Racing Team BMW.
Two notable retirements from the A6 class are the #5 Spirit of Race Ferrari driven by Gianmaria Bruni, Toni Vilander, Alexander Talkanitsa, Sr and Alexander Talkanitsa, Jr. and the #7 Craft Racing Aston Martin of Stefan Mücke, Darren Turner, Darryl O'Young, Frank Yu and Tomonobu Fujii.
Coverage of the Dubai 24 Hours can be found here.
Covering All Motorsports. From Indianapolis to Le Mans, Daytona to Monaco.
