Asian Le Mans Series. Dubai Race 1: Algarve Pro Racing Take Victory.

The no25 Algarve Pro Racing Oreca took the chequered flag at the end of the first 4 Hours of Dubai race, to record the team’s second win in a row, with Michael Jensen, Valerio Rinicella and Malthe Jakobsen taking the championship at the halfway point of the 2024/25 Asian Le Mans Series.

The LMP3 win went to the no26 Bretton Racing Ligier, after Jens Reno Moeller took the lead on lap, with Griffin Peebles and Theodor Jensen bringing the car home.

The GT victory was claimed by the no96 2 Seas Motorsport Mercedes-AMG GT3 EVO when the leading no10 Manthey Porsche 911 dived into the pits for a splash of fuel with less than two minutes of the race remaining.

This allowed Ben Barnicoat, who had been closing the gap to Klaus Bachler in the lead Porsche, to sweep into the lead and take the chequered flag and was joined by Anthony MacIntosh and Parker Thompson on the top step of the GT podium.

DRAMA ALL THE WAY IN DUBAI
The race start saw the field led into Turn 1 by the no22 Proton Competition of Giorgio Roda, with the no91 Pure Rxcing Oreca of Aliaksandr Malykhin trying to get alongside the Italian before the first corner.  This allowed the no11 Proton Competition Oreca of Alexander Mattschull to go ahead of Malykhin and the no50 AF Corse of Patrick Byrne and exit in second place.

Further back there were several spinners in the LMP3 field with the no35 Ultimate, no43 Inter Europol Competition, the no7 Graff Racing and no49 High Class Racing all being delayed, dropping them back down the field after they rejoined.  Mark Patterson in the no49 Ligier was judged to have caused the incident and was served a 10 second time penalty on his next pitstop by the Stewards.

The GT race start saw the no74 Kessel Racing Ferrari of Dustin Blattner kept the lead, with the no81 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG of Rinat Salikhov and the no87 Origine Motorsport Porsche in second and third respectively.

After dropping back to third at the first corner the no91 Pure Rxcing moved back to second on lap 2, with Malykhin setting off to catch Roda in the leading car.

The no27 Optimum Motorsport McLaren had to slowly return to the pits with a binding front left brake calliper and was pushed into the garage for repairs.

In LMP3 Moeller was leading with the no34 Inter Europol Competition Ligier of Tim Creswick pushing the Dane, keeping less than a second behind the lead car.

After 50 minutes of racing the Safety Car was deployed when the no8 Dragon Racing Ferrari of Todd Coleman spun off and hit the barrier at Turn 6.  The American driver was OK, and the badly damaged Ferrari was recovered, but the Armco barrier required rebuilding, so the race was red flagged to allow the repair crew to work.

The work took nearly an hour, with the clock continuing to run down, and the race resumed behind the Safety Car.  The no9 Getspeed Mercedes-AMG of Steve Janis stalled on the grid at the restart and had to be pushed into the pitlane by the marshals.

The championship leading no81 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG also went into the garage with an ABS issue and the no15 RLR MSport Ligier retired with a coolant issue after steam was seen coming from the engine bay.

The race went green with an hour and 45-minutes remaining, with the no91 Oreca leading with Harry King at the wheel from the no11 Proton Competition of Mathias Beche and the no25 Algarve Pro Racing of Valerio Rinicella in second and third respectively.

Griffin Peebles in the no26 Bretton Racing was being challenged for the LMP3 lead by Leonardo Colavita in the no35 Ultimate, with the no7 Graff Racing Ligier of Daniel Frost in third.

The no87 Origine Motorsport Porsche of Ye Hongli was leading from Kang Ling in the no14 Climax Racing Mercedes AMG, with Ben Tuck in the no74 Kessel Racing Ferrari and Joel Sturm in the no10 Manthey Porsche closing up on the two Chinese drivers. Tuck went up into second place and was soon challenging Ye for the GT lead.

For several laps the leading GT cars battled before Tuck finally moved into the lead at Turn 6, with Joel Sturm making his move for second place at Turn 9 on the same lap.

A Full Course Yellow was declared with 66 minutes left when the no51 AF Corse and no88 Dragon Racing Ferraris collided, dropping debris on the track at the last corner and on the main straight. The intervention last four minutes and racing resumed with just over an hour of the race remaining.

Joel Sturm in the no10 Porsche got a better restart and got alongside Tuck’s Ferrari into Turn 10, with the German sweeping into the GT lead.

After the next set of pitstops for the LMP2 field the no11 Proton Competition Oreca was leading from the no91 Pure Rxcing of Julien Andlauer. However, Mathias Beche had to pit to allow Jonas Ried to complete the race.

Andlauer was leading but was being caught by the no25 APR Oreca as Malthe Jakobsen moved closer to the lead car. A slight spin for the no91 Oreca at T15 allowed Jakobsen to close right up and the Dane swept into the lead at the last corner with just over half an hour remaining.

Julien Andlauer’s race went from bad to worse when the French driver was passing some GT cars and caused a collision with the no9 Getspeed Mercedes-AMG. The no91 Oreca rejoined in second place but was later given a Drive Through Penalty for causing the collision.

Ben Barnicoat had taken over the no96 2 Seas Motorsport Mercedes-AMG from his teammate Parker Thompson and rejoined in 5^th place.  The British driver was soon moving up the field, passing the cars ahead of him to be lying 8 seconds behind the no10 Manthey Porsche with 15-minutes of the race remaining.

Barnicoat was closing the gap, but it wasn’t going to be enough to overtake the leading Porsche before the chequered flag.  However, the race wasn’t over as with 1m46s on the clock the no10 Porsche unexpectedly went into the pits for a splash of fuel, promoting the no96 Mercedes-AMG into the GT lead.  At the chequered flag 2 Seas Motorsport took the GT win, just 3.2 seconds ahead of the no92 Manthey EMA Porsche, with the no74 Kessel Racing Ferrari taking the flag in third.

The LMP3 lead was still held by the no26 Bretton Racing, which now had Theodor Jensen at the wheel, but Matteo Quintarelli was slowly closing the gap to the lead car.  However, the Dane held on to take the LMP3 win, just 8.047s ahead of the championship leading no35 Ultimate Ligier, with the no34 Inter Europol Competition Ligier claiming the final podium position one lap down to the leading cars.

At the front of the field the no25 Algarve Pro Racing Oreca took the chequered flag for the second time this season, Malthe Jakobsen crossing the line 11.3 seconds ahead of the no3 DKR Engineering Oreca with Laurents Horr at the wheel.  The no20 Algarve Pro Racing Oreca finished third to give the Portuguese flagged team a double podium at the end of a drama filled first race in Dubai.

The second 4 Hours of Dubai will get underway at 14h10 GST on Sunday afternoon.

Valerio Rinicella – #25 Algarve Pro Racing Oreca 07-Gibson:  “With the red flag we had to change the plan, but we adapted really quickly. I really thank my teammates and to the team for the fantastic job.  The car was amazing, the pace looked good and I hope for another win tomorrow.

The pitstop after the Safety Car was a bit crazy, I had contact with a Porsche on the back, but we managed to survive on the exit. I think this was the crucial moment of the race, because it helped our position. So, I would say I’m really thankful to the safety car.

Malthe Jakobsen- #25 Algarve Pro Racing Oreca 07-Gibson: “It’s been a very chaotic week for me; not with a lot of sleep. I had a busy week with Peugeot, with duties both in Paris, and then a test day in Portimao. Unfortunately, I had a canceled flight on Thursday night, so I couldn’t get here until last night. I got here this morning and managed to get one flying lap before the start of the race. Then I got thrown out into the race with an hour to go.

“It was a very intense race. It’s amazing to fight with drivers like Julian (Andlauer), because we have obviously, respect for each other, but we still race each other hard but there’s respect in between us. So that’s cool to see that there are no dirty tricks or anything going on but hard and fair racing and the run to the flag.

“At the end, the tyres were starting to fall off and I needed to fight the car a bit more. Once you’re in clean air, it’s kind of okay but here, because the track is so dirty and difficult off the line, whenever you overtake GTs, it sometimes takes half a lap or a lap to clean the tyres again.”