DUBAI (16 January, 2021) – TOPCAR Sport has secured its first win at the Hankook 24H DUBAI and its second 24-hour TCE win in the 24H SERIES powered by Hankook following a race-long battle with reigning Overall TCE Teams’ champion, Autorama Motorsport by Wolf-Power Racing.

The TOPCAR Sport CUPRA TCR (#131, Fabian Danz / Adrian Spescha / Patrick Sing / Ronny Jost / Benjamin Leuchter) took the overall TCE shortly before one-third distance, and despite a momentary power loss on-track during the night, was rarely led thereafter. The Swiss team, which also won the Hankook 24H BARCELONA in 2019, completed 543 laps of the 5.39km Dubai Autodrome en-route to the chequered flag.

“I’m really happy to win this race,” Fabian Danz explained to radioleman.com’s Ian Salvestrin, “Our car was perfect, has no scratches, and was running so well. But it’s never easy. During the night you do wonder, ‘why am I doing this?’, but it was really worth it! I’m so happy!”

Overall TCE Teams’ champion Autorama Motorsport by Wolf-Power Racing made an impressive start to its title defense by securing two of the overall TCE podium spots, the lead #112  Volkswagen Golf GTi TCR (Antti Buri / Kari-Pekka Laaksonen / Gustavo Xavier / Jasmin Preisig / Miklas Born) finishing just ahead of the sister #1 VW tintop (Emil Heyerdahl / Marlon Menden / Jérôme Ogay / Constantin Kletzer).

Similarly, last year’s TCE event winner, AC Motorsport, also claimed two top five positions in its first 24H SERIES event running two Audi RS3 LMS’. A podium contender from the get-go, the #188 Audi (Stéphane Perrin / Philippe Thirion / Sebastien Morales / Mathieu Detry) eventually finished 4th ahead of the sister #199 (Thierry Chkondali / Maxwell Hanratty / Thomas Kiefer / Mark Wallenwein / Sebastien Lajoux) and the BBR CUPRA TCR DSG (#107, Anusorn Asiralertsiri / Chariya Nuya / Kantadhee Kusir / Kantasak Kusiri / Tanart Sathienthirakul). The latter ground to a halt with less than an hour left on the clock, but had still completed enough laps of the Dubai Autodrome to be classified 6th in the TCR class and 8th overall in the TCE division. 

On its first endurance event running the BMW M2 CS Racing, PK Carsport (#208, Bert Longin / Peter Guelinckx / Stienes Longin / Stijn Lowette) survived fuel pump problems and a collision during the night to finish 7th overall in TCE and secure a hard-earned TCX class victory.

Alternator, power steering and overheating issues blighted CWS Engineering (#278, Colin White / Jean-Francois Brunot / Adam Hayes) throughout the weekend, but the British-based Ginetta G55 was able to overcome these issues to finish 2nd in-class and 7th on the road in TCE. The fun-M Motorsport BMW M240i Racing Cup (#302, Simon Klemund / James Winslow / John Corbett / George King / Julius Adomavičius) weathered handling issues, brought on by a collision on-track, to complete the TCX podium.

Despite suffering driveshaft failure inside the final three hours, the Zengő Motorsport CUPRA TCR DSG (#133, Gábor Kismarty-Lechner / Tamás Horváth / Csaba Tóth / Szabolcs Gál / Zoltán Zengő) managed to round out the TCE division’s top 10 on its 8th appearance at the Hankook 24H DUBAI.

Endurance racing action continues on 26-27 March, as the SERIES powered by Hankook travels to the Autodromo Internazionale del Mugello in Italy for its first European round of the year, the Hankook 12H MUGELLO. One month later on 23-24-25 April, CREVENTIC will host the Hankook 12H SPA for the fourth consecutive year at the vaunted Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps. Further details regarding the 2021 24H SERIES calendar and championship standings can be found HERE.