DUBAI: Oman’s Al Faisal al Zubair teams up with Dan Harper, Max Hesse, Ben Tuck and Darren Leung for the first time this weekend (January 10 to 12) to take part in the prestigious Michelin Dubai 24H race at the Dubai Autodrome.
Al Manar Racing announced earlier this week that it had reached an agreement to form a partnership with the iconic BMW W Racing Team and the quintet of talented drivers will tackle one of the world’s most famous endurance races in a BMW M4 GT3 W Evo run by Team WRT under the Al Manar Racing by Team WRT banner.
Al Zubair finished second in the Gold Cup category in last year’s GT World Challenge Powered by AWS Endurance Cup and claimed outright class victory at the Crowdstrike 24 Hours of Spa.
“I am very excited to start this journey with BMW and WRT at a race that I love very much here in Dubai. It is definitely one of the toughest races, so it won’t be easy at all. Added to that, we will be in a new car with new team-mates. It’s going to be a learning curve but our target is to go for the win. We will be pushing for that. Hopefully, we will be able to achieve a good result to start the relationship with BMW," Al Zubair said.
British professional driver Harper, semi-professional Tuck and amateur Leung are joined by Germany’s Hesse and Al Faisal al Zubair.
Northern Irishman Harper, 24, is a BMW Motorsport works driver and was the 2023 British GT champion, while Tuck drove a Ferrari for Kessel Racing in last year’s Fanatec GT Endurance Cup and is a full-time endurance driver and performance coach.
Leung, 37, won the 2023 British GT Championship in the GT category and the 2024 GT World Challenge Europe Sprint Cup, both alongside Harper. Hesse, 23, has been an integral member of the BMW team and drove for Rowe Racing last season in the GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup.
Competition in the GT3 category comes from the likes of the SMP Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo, Comtoyou Racing’s Aston Martin Vantage, the Dinamic GT and Pure Rxcing Porsche 911 GT3 Rs, Optimum Motorsport’s McLaren 7205 GT3, Herberth Motorsport’s Porsche and the Tresor Attempto Racing Audi R8 LMS GT3.
The Dubai 24-Hour race was inaugurated in 2006 and ran as a 24-hour series race for the first time in 2015.
On Friday, a private test session will be permitted from 09.00hrs (GMT+4) before the first official 90-minute practice stint gets underway at 11.15hrs. Qualifying sessions for the GT3 cars will take centre stage from 17.05hrs onwards and a further 90 minutes of night practice is scheduled, starting at 19.30hrs.
After a short warm-up session on Saturday morning, the Michelin Dubai 24H 2025 fires into life at 13.00hrs and finishes at the same time on Sunday afternoon.
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