The second weekend of January features two world class events on two continents. Formula E runs their fourth round and second consecutive from South America as the all-electric championship heads to the capital of Argentina, Buenos Aires. Before the one-day show however, the first 24-hour endurance race of 2015 will take place from the Middle East for the tenth running of the Dubai 24 Hours.
Dubai 24 Hour
A record 95 cars are entered for the Dubai 24 Hour, the first race of the FIA-recognized 24H Series. Twenty-seven cars are entered in the GT3, A6 class including a return of 2014 winners Stadler Motorsport. Four of the five drivers who were apart of last year's victory will be back in 2014 as Swiss drivers Mark Ineichen, Rolf Ineichen, Adrian Amstutz and German Christian Engelhart all return to behind the wheel of the #1 Porsche 997 GT3 R. Black Falcon has two Mercedes SLS AMG GT3s entered. Hubert Haupt, Yelmer Burma, Oliver Webb and Abdelaziz Al Faisal will drive the #2 while 2013 winners Bernd Schneider, Jeroen Bleekemolen and Khaled Al Qubaisi will be joined by Andreas Simonsen in the #3 Mercedes.
Other notable Mercedes entries include GTRussian with Estonians Marko Asmer and Kevin Korjus joining Russian Alexey Vasilyev and Karim Al Azhari in the #10 Mercedes. Ram Racing will return to competition with the #30 Mercedes with Adam Christodoulou, Tom Onslow-Cole, Thomas Jäger and Cheerag Arya.
Fach Auto Tech enters two Porsches. The #11 will feature Swiss drivers Marcel Wagner, Heinz Bruder, Erwin Keller and Heinz Arnold and Italian Matteo Cairoli with German Otto Klohs, Jen Richter, Sven Müller and Austrian Martin Ragginger in the #12 Porsche.
British Triple Eight Race Engineering head to Dubai with a BMW Z4 GT3 with drivers Lee Mowle, Joe Osborne, Jacques Duyver and Charlie Hollings driving the #8 BMW.
A German manufacture has won all previous nine runnings of the Dubai 24 Hour.
Scuderia Praha will run the #4 Ferrari 458 Italia GT3 with Czech drivers Jírí Písarík and Jaromīr Jirík being joined by Matteo Malucelli and Peter Kox. The #88 Dragon Racing Ferrari will have Matt Griffin, Rob Barff, Jordan Grogor and Mohammed Jawa behind the wheel.
Gulf Racing have entered the #69 Lamborghini Gallardo LP560 GT3 with Roald Goethe, Stuart Hall, Jamie Campbell-Walter and Frederic Fatien.
The #23 Nissan GT Academy Team RJN GTR GT3 features three drivers, including the lone American in the A6 class. Nick Hammann is joined by German Florian Strauss, Mexican Ricardo Sanchez, Saudi Ahmed Bin Khanen and Frenchman Gaeten Paletou.
KPM Racing have entered the lone Aston Martin Vantage GT3 as the #28 will be driven by Stefan Mücke, Paul White and Jonny Adam.
The Dutch V8 Racing have entered the lone Corvette C6R ZR1 as Dutchmen Rick Abresch, Alex van t'Hoff, Wolf Nathan, Nicky Pastorelli and Portuguese Miguel Ramos will drive the #19 Corvette.
Eight of the previous nine Dubai 24 Hour winners have included a German driver. The lone year to not feature a German winner was 2008 when the Australian VIP Pet Foods Porsche won with Australians Jonathon Webb and Klark Quinn, Brit Tony Quinn and New Zealander Craig Baird. Porsche has won four Dubai 24 Hours, BMW has three and Mercedes has two. There has never been a winner of the Dubai 24 Hour to feature a driver line-up all from one country.
Green flag for the 10th Dubai 24 Hour will fly at 5:00 a.m. ET on Friday.
Buenos Aires ePrix
Formula E looks for their first repeat winner as the series heads into their fourth round of the 2014-15 season.
Lucas di Grassi has finished on the podium in all three Formula E races but has finished worse in each race. After winning in Beijing, the Brazilian finished second to Sam Bird at Putrajaya and finished third at Punta del Este behind Sébastien Buemi and Nelson Piquet, Jr. and benefited from the late retirement of Jean-Éric Vergne, who had a suspension failure during the final laps.
Di Grassi leads the championship by 18 points over Buemi and Bird. Nicolas Prost is fourth, 34 points behind di Grassi. Piquet, Jr. and Jérôme d'Ambrosio are tied with 22 points with the Brazilian holding the tiebreaker as his second place finish is better than the Belgians best finish of fifth.
Franck Montagny and Karun Chandhok are tied with 18 points but the Frenchman Montagny has been suspended are failing a drug test in November. Spaniards Jamie Alguersauri and Oriol Servià have each scored 14 points while Jarno Trulli and Charles Pic are tied with 12 points. Pic has not competed since the opening race at Beijing and will not be in Buenos Aires.
Bruno Senna has eight points while António Félix da Costa and Daniel Abt are tied on four points. Abt has scored in all three races this season. Vergne has three points after starting on pole position at Punta del Este. Stéphane Sarrazin and Takuma Sato each have two points while Nick Heidfeld score his first point of the season in Uruguay.
Vergne will return to drive his second race for Andretti Autosport while Marco Andretti will make his Formula E debut replacing Matthew Brabham at his father's team. Brabham failed to score in his first two race and was running in the points at Uruguay before having an accident with five laps to go.
Ho-Pin Tung will return after missing Punta del Este because of Gulf 12 Hours duty. Corvette factory driver Antonio García ran Punta del Este in place of Tung. Salvador Durán returns for his second race with Aguri having replaced Katherine Legge prior to Uruguay.
Fox Sports 2 will have live coverage of the Buenos Aires ePrix at noon ET on Saturday.
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