PROsport, which won the 24H SERIES’ Overall GT Teams’ championship in 2018 as ‘PROsport Performance,’ returns to the Hankook 24H DUBAI after a one-year absence in the 992 category. The #901 Porsche 992 GT3 Cup will thus compete against the likes of 2022 992 Teams’ champion Red Ant Racing; reigning TCR Teams’ champion Holmgaard Motorsport, which makes the jump from TCR; three-time class winner FACH AUTO TECH, which took a commanding 1-2 finish in 992 last year; and series staple HRT Performance, which also took a class win in 992-Am in 2022, in one of the strongest Porsche-only fields in the event’s recent history. 

Despite its brief hiatus, PROsport, a former class podium finisher in Dubai, is being heralded by its team boss as a potential 992 frontrunner on 26-27-28 January. 

“I am confident that we can fight for a good result in our class at the [Hankook] 24H DUBAI,” Esser explains. “After skipping the race in 2023, we are returning to our almost traditional season openr, a race we are all looking forward to.”

Simon Balcaen and Guillaume Dumarey, who contested the event together with PROsport in 2022,  will be joined on the driver line-up by Jörg Viebahn and Steven Palette. Viebahn, who took his first category win at the event on his debut back in 2008 (and who also finished on the SP3 podium in 2017), most recently competed in Dubai in 2022, and spent 2023 racing in the Nürburgring Endurance Series. Palette meanwhile is a former class champion in the GT World Challenge Europe Sprint Cup, and has two previous starts at the event to his name. 

PROsport started its first Hankook 24H DUBAI in 2017, impressing with 2nd in-class first time out behind five-time overall winner Black Falcon. PROsport would go on to comfortably win that year’s 991 Teams’ title with Charles Putman, Charles Espenlaub and Joe Foster. 

One year later, again with Putman, Espenlaub and Foster, PROsport moved up to the GT3 class, and endured a troubled run in 10th in GT3-Am. Matters improved when the German team, now sporting an Aston Martin Vantage AMR, returned to GT4 for 2021, securing 2nd in-class behind 2021’s Overall GT Teams’ champion, ST Racing. A two-car Aston Martin line-up in 2022 yielded 7th in GT3-Am – driven Balcaen, Dumarey and the latter’s brother Maxime, and Jean Glorieux – and 7th in GT4. 

A solid result at the Hankook 24H DUBAI would be a fitting way for both PROsport Racing and Christoph Esser to celebrate significant milestones in 2024: PROsport will take part in its 20th anniversary this year, while Esser is entering his 50th season of motor racing.