ABU DHABI (20 January, 2024) – Haas RT has secured its second overall pole position in the 24H SERIES powered by Hankook, having withstood a late charge from Car Collection Motorsport in the closing moments of qualifying for the 2024 Hankook 6H ABU DHABI. 

HAAS RT (#21, Stanislav Minsky / Thomas Kiefer / Torsten Kratz / Mathieu Detry), which starts its second full 24H SERIES campaign this year – and only its second-ever full season of motorsport – with a two-car effort this weekend, went into the final 15-minutes of qualifying just one-tenth adrift of the Car Collection Motorsport Porsche 992 GT3 R (#96, Dustin Blattner / Loek Hartog / Dennis Marschall) on provisional pole position. A succession of fast laps by Matieu Detry, with the Belgian setting a best lap of 1m 54.008s, proved decisive in the end, and the Audi R8 LMS GT3 EVO II eventually took the top spot by just 0.072 seconds. 

In a grandstand finish, Car Collection Motorsport’s Loek Hartog looked to have got the job done with a 1m 53.734s on the very last lap of qualifying, only for the German team’s 1m 55.465s in Q2 to be disallowed for a track limits infringement. Car Collection Motorsport, the inaugural winner of the Hankook 6H ABU DHABI in 2021, will therefore start 2nd. 

Less than half a second behind the front row, Baron Motorsport (#86, Ernst Kirchmayr / Axcil Jefferies / Philipp Baron), winner of the Hankook 6H ABU DHABI in 2022, will line up 3rd. The Austrian team posted the fastest overall time in Q1 – a 1m 53.844s – but fell foul of track limits and could only manage the 14th fastest time in Q2. A 1m 53.467s in final qualifying however, just two-tenths shy of the fastest lap, brought the Ferrari 488 GT3 right back into contention.

Herberth Motorsport (#91, Ralf Bohn / Alfred Renauer / Antares Au), which finished 2nd overall at last year’s Hankook 6H ABU DHABI just 7.226 seconds behind eventual winner Pure Rxcing, lines up 4th with its Porsche 992 GT3 R ahead of the Grove Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo (#10, Stephen Grove / Brenton Grove / Jordan Love). In an impressive showing for the Antipodean team in its first outing as an official Mercedes-AMG Customer, Jordan Love set the fastest overall lap of qualifying – a 1m 53.233s – during Q3. 

A month on from the first GT3 podium for its new BMW M4 GT3, Century Motorsport (#22, Carl Cavers / Lewis Plato / Jack Barlow) continues its strong showing with 6th on the overall grid ahead of series debutant Race Lab (#13, Lucky Khera / Thomas Surgent / Euan Hankey / James Kell) and the latter’s EVO-spec McLaren 720S GT3. 

Impressively, this means SIX different manufacturers will take the start for tomorrow’s six-hour race in the overall top seven on the grid. 

The decision to reinstate the Q1 time for Attempto Racing’s Audi R8 LMS GT3 EVO II (#99, Jef Machiels / Alex Arkin Aka / Florian Scholze) means the German team will start 9th, and is thus sandwiched between the Huber Motorsport Porsche 992 GT3 R (#50, Finn Gehrsitz / Marc Bartels / Tim Zimmermann) in 8th and fellow Porsche runner Manamauri Energy by Ebimotors (#95, Fabrizio Broggi / Sergiu Nicolae / Sabino de Castro / Cosimo Papi) in 10th. The CP Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 EVO (#85, Charles Putman / Charles Espenlaub / Joe Foster / Shane Lewis), which comes into round two of the 2023/2024 24H SERIES Middle East Trophy at the head of the GT3 Teams’ standings following its win in Kuwait, will start just behind the trio in 11th. 

Vortex V8 (#701, Lionel Amrouche / Philippe Bonnel / Olivier Gomez / Arnaud Gomez) continues its impressive program with the brand-new Vortex 2.0 in Abu Dhabi with a second consecutive pole position, just over eight-tenths clear of the Lamborghini Huracán Super Trofeo of series newcomer Scott Sport (#750, Keith Frieser / Mikkel Mac). Leipert Motorsport (#710, Gregg Gorski / Gerhard Watzinger / Brendon Leitch), also running a Lamborghini Huracán Super Trofeo, lines up 3rd. The German team finished 2nd overall at the event back in 2021. 

Fittingly, the GTX Teams’ winner of last year’s 24H SERIES Middle East Trophy – the razoon-more than racing KTM X-BOW GTX (#714, Artur Chwist / Daniel Drexel / Denis Liebl) – will start just ahead of the developmental Ginetta G56 Cup of current standings leader, Toro Verde (#795, Lawrence Tomlinson / Freddie Tomlinson / Michael Simpson). 

992 Teams’ standings leader Red Camel-Jordans.nl (#909, Ivo Breukers / Luc Breukers / Fabian Danz) made a strong start to its Abu Dhabi weekend with 992 pole position, although the Dutch team will perform a precautionary engine change overnight ahead of tomorrow’s race. 

The Porsche 992 GT3 Cup of Abu Dhabi’s RABDAN by FULGENZI (#971, Saif Alameri / Christopher Zöchling / Salem Alketbi) will start its home race a 2nd in-class – and from 992-Am pole position – ahead of the first of three HRT Performance Porsches racing this weekend, the QMMF by HRT Porsche 992 GT3 Cup (#931, Abdulla Ali Al Khelaif / Ghanim Al Ali / Ibrahim Al Abdulghani / Julian Hanses). As in 2023, the latter is officially backed this weekend by the Qatar Motor and Motorcycle Federation. 

Despite a spin at the almost completely blind turn 16 – an incident which led to a very brief red flag during Q2, but no damage – the MDM Ireckonu Porsche 992 GT3 Cup (#965, Jan Jaap van Roon / Tom Coronel) lines up 4th in-class ahead of 992 Teams’ championship contender KKrämer Racing (#937, Cameron Mcleod / Karsten Krämer / Mark ‘Speakerwas’ / Etienne Ploenes).

Century Motorsport (#429, Charlie Robertson / Ravi Ramyead) is set to start its first Hankook 6H ABU DHABI from GT4-class pole position, the BMW M4 GT4 having pulled a 0.9 second gap, on aggregate, over the UAE’s GPM by Dragon Racing (#408, Keith Gatehouse / Ramez Azzam / Denis Bulatov). The latter’s Mercedes-AMG GT4 will start 2nd in-class. 

The TOYOTA GAZOO Racing UK works entered Toyota GR SUPRA GT4 EVO (#423, Michael O'Brien / Benjamin Tusting / Samuel Harrison / Kavi Jundu) lines up 3rd in-class for its 24H SERIES debut, just ahead – fittingly – of the GR SUPRA GT4 EVO of local team, Continental Racing (#496, Vasily Vladykin / Andrey Solukovtsev / Ahmed Al Khaja).

The BMW M4 GT4 of Kuwait class winner AGMC Racing team by Simpson Motorsport (#438, Fabian Duffieux / Timothy Docker / Ivan Krapivtsev) rounds out the top five in GT4 after a conservative run during qualifying. 

A surprisingly close inter-team battle for TCX pole position in the end was decided by less than four-tenths of a second for CWS Engineering, with the #278 Ginetta (Colin White / Mark Griffin) pipping the sister #277 G55 Owen Hizzey / Dale Albutt / Colin White) in the closing moments of Q3. The pair will lead TCR pole-sitting AC Motorsport’s Audi RS3 LMS TCR (#188, Ivars Vallers / James Kaye) away at the rolling start, with the Simpson Motorsport Audi RS3 LMS DSG (#138, Andrei Muraveika / Jason Garrett / Ivan Stanchin / Ricky Coomber) and the Race Track Competition Lamera Cup (#223, Tommy Rollinger / Gilles Bruckner / Daniel Lamouli) rounding out the overall TCE top five. 

With the grid set to form at 09.15 hrs local time tomorrow morning (Sunday 21 January), the green flag for the 2024 Hankook 6H ABU DHABI is scheduled to fly at 10.00 hrs. Racing will run uninterrupted until the chequered flag is waved at 16.00 hrs later that afternoon. The action will be live with commentary from radiolemans.com on the official 24H SERIES YouTube channel. Regular updates will also be published on X (@24HSeries), Facebook (24H Series) and Instagram (24H Series). Further information can be found HERE