“This was one of the best new tracks that we’ve been to in a long time,” Charles explains to CREVENTIC, looking back one year on. “Y’know, we run a lot of famous, historic circuits in the 24H SERIES, and unanimously, my drivers and I agreed that this was one of the best new tracks we’ve been on in many, many years. The design was fun to drive and provided good racing, so we were very pleased with Kuwait Motor Town. It’s really kind of a gem in the Middle East.”

Despite the enormous learning curve, and an unexpected hurdle that came with that – “we tried learning where the track went on a simulator, but unfortunately, the model we used wasn’t completed yet!” – CP Racing’s typically heedful approach quickly bears fruit. Unable to do much about a seismic run from Team Kuwait (no-one can touch Zaid Ashkanani’s 1m 52.111s, although CP Racing’s Shane Lewis is the only other driver to dip below the 1m 53s mark), the #85 Mercedes lines up 3rd, barely 0.032s off the Team GP-Elite Porsche 991 GT3 R on the front row. 

“Everyone says qualifying’s not that important to a long event,” Charles continues. “That’s true, to some degree. But, when you start too far back in the field, you can very quickly get separated from the leaders if a Code 60 comes out. That starts a chain of events. So, if you’re looking for good overall results, yeah, you’re looking for a good qualifying times. We take that fairly seriously. 

“At Kuwait, we felt we did a good job in qualifying. The two cars that were ahead of us were really fast, and we ran what we thought were our laps because, as always, we’re racing ourselves as much as our competitors. So we were quite happy with that performance.” 

“The first-ever, international event at Kuwait Motor Town is the Hankook 12H KUWAIT. Lights out, and we’re racing! High noon, to midnight!”

The red lights go out, and the evocative voice of radiolemans.com’s John Hindhaugh follows the 21-car field into KMT’s turn one, with Ashkanani in the pole-sitting Team Kuwait Porsche 911 GT3 R still ahead after a good getaway. Fellow front row starter Lucas Groeneveld meanwhile has been caught napping by an electric start from ARC Bratislava’s Zdeno Mikulasko: the Slovakian quickly dispatches the Dutch orange Porsche 911 GT3 R from the second row, threading a perilously tight needle on the start-finish straight as he does so. A fast recovery from Team GP-Elite, now on both of their gearboxes, means there’s a three-way fight for the lead as the field heads down to turn two.

Though not quite the start that CP Racing’s Charles Espenlaub had hoped for, the #85 Mercedes-AMG GT3, now back down to 4th, settles into its pace, albeit a second or two adrift. Still, no panic. No fuss. It’s all part of the long game. 

“We usually try to dial our car in with an endurance setup, one that will be consistent over a long run. Often that takes a little bit of outright speed away from us, so we’re used to seeing cars go faster than us, or just have more outright pace than we have. 

“But we try to play to our strong point, which is consistency. The consistency that we have between all of our drivers, and just aim for a setup that will help the car endure.”

Mikulasko’s heroics continue when the luminescent ARC Lamborghini takes the overall lead towards the end of lap five. Albeit very briefly: just three corners later, the Huracan’s right rear tyre punctures at 230-plus kph heading into turn one. 

Mikulasko does brilliantly well to keep the car under control, but two laps and 20 places are lost as the #44 ARC Lamborghini completes an interminably long 5.6km lap back to pitroad. Were all that not enough, ARC Bratislava suffers seven further punctures during the event, ending any hope of a win. The Slovakian team eventually finishes 20th overall, 51 laps down.

Was such a high-profile tyre issue a concern for CP Racing – now 3rd, behind GP-Elite and the leading Team Kuwait – at a track at which it had never visited…?

“Tyre wear is one of the things we’re always focused on. While we’re testing and practicing, we take a look at the tyres to see what we’re doing to them. We may even pay a little more attention to that than some teams so, yeah, when we see other people having problems, we want to make sure we don’t have the same problem.”

Tellingly, CP Racing is the only GT3 entrant not to suffer a puncture – slow or otherwise – over the ensuing 12 hours.

“Unfortunately, he tried to re-take me going into turn one, which led to him going wide and I had to avoid him by going out into the marbles. So that was ‘bad’ on him. The ‘bad’ on me is that I should not have assumed he would take that type of approach. When you put on a race helmet, some of your aggression and adrenaline comes out stronger than perhaps it should. So in retrospect, I should have taken a more defensive line to make sure he stayed behind me going into turn one. So, yeah, I think [Fulgenzi] caused it, but I probably should have avoided it.” 

The dusty, but largely unscathed, #85 AMG loses almost seven minutes awaiting rescue by KMT’s still inexperienced marshals: ironically, it was on CP Racing’s spare Mercedes-AMG GT3 the recovery team had practiced earlier in the week. After a quick pit check, Shane Lewis rejoins the race 3rd, now two laps down on new leader GP-Elite and behind Team Kuwait. 

3rd, bizarrely, soon becomes 2nd when Ahmad Al Ghanem also comes a cropper with a back marker, this time against Hofor Racing by Bonk Motorsport’s BMW M235i. The Porsche is eventually recovered from the gravel trap and rejoins 3rd, but the local team has lost another lap.

CP Racing’s “mature cunning” however can do nothing about the GP-Elite Porsche, the superior pace of which is already starting to stretch its five-minute advantage. Charles, now out of the car after just 19 laps, is left to rue a lost opportunity.

“At the time, I was pretty disappointed. I was mad at myself because I ended up spinning the car in the marbles, and rather than just spinning the car to a stop and getting going again, I thought, ‘I’ll let the car slide backwards a little ways to save the tyres from being flat-spotted.’ It being nighttime, I didn’t see that I was leaving the tarmac and heading into gravel. As soon as I touched the gravel, I thought, ‘uh oh, that was a bad mistake!’

“When you’re sitting in 1st place and all of a sudden, something like that happens, and you start seeing all those cars going by… I just felt really bad for my team.”

By an odd quirk of fate, CREVENTIC’s live feed happens to be onboard with Team GP-Elite as the Dutch Porsche rolls to a halt exiting turn eight: “Daan van Kuijk is going slowly… something’s broken on that car! He’s got no drive. No drive at all! Here’s the drama!” quoth an enigmatic Hindhaugh. The “forlorn sight” in question is stuck in third gear. A dejected Lucas Groeneveld, speaking with radiolemans’ Joe Bradley in the pitlane, suspects gearbox failure. 

Incredibly, and with less than an hour remaining, catastrophe has struck the overall leader of the Hankook 12H KUWAIT for a third time. For GP-Elite, it’s a cruel end to a mighty drive. For CP Racing, it’s a reprieve.

“You never want to win by seeing your opponents have problems. You never want to lose by having problems. But that blade cuts both ways: sometimes you’re the beneficiary; sometimes you lose a result that, in ‘fair play,’ should have been yours. We all suffer those moments. That’s automobile racing. 

“We all try to do the best we can, preparing our cars and making sure they will go the distance. And sometimes, parts and pieces, manufactured by human beings, can fail and let us down. 

“So, we were happy to take that win – you know sometimes that you should have had wins that were ‘robbed’ from you – but we definitely felt bad for [GP-Elite]. They’d run a great race to that point.” 

With its nearest rivals either too far behind to mount a comeback, or out altogether, it’s fitting that, after 323 nail-biting laps, Charles Espenlaub – competing in his 50th CREVENTIC race – collects the chequered flag for CP Racing at Kuwait Motor Town. That the win also secures the first overall series title for the eponymous team of Charles Putman, also in his 50th start with CREVENTIC, makes the weekend that much more special for the 24H SERIES staple.  

“That championship was a fantastic morale boost for the whole team. I know Charles, Joe and Shane say it all the time, but it really isn’t just about the drivers. It’s about the entire team. We consider our team a family. We’re very good at keeping the same guys working in the garage and the pits, race-after-race, year-after-year, and we’ve all come really close together. So, usually when I’m telling myself, ‘I really want a win out of this race,’ I want it for them. 

“And they really deserved that title win. They’ve worked so hard and we’ve all worked so hard together. They deserve the recognition of a championship.”

Met by rapturous applause from the hometown crowd enjoying the paddock’s evening festivities, Team Kuwait’s Zaid Ashkanani, Ahmad Al Ghanem, and Mohammad Al-Kazemi round out a memorable weekend for Kuwait Motor Town with 2nd place overall. After a close-fought battle with Willi Motorsport by Ebimotors, 992-class winner Red Camel-Jordans.nl is an unlikely final podium finisher in 3rd.

But in the middle, holding their newly-won ‘Continents’ trophy aloft, the day, and the first-ever Hankook 12H KUWAIT, belongs to CP Racing. 

“I tell all of my friends and the fans that watch us, with endurance racing, you have to play your own game. If you do everything right, and get into the top few, after that, the racing Gods will decide who gets to win and who doesn’t. But you have to be there near the top and do all your homework, and occasionally those wins will get gifted to you. 

“I don’t feel like we dominated Kuwait. We had some good luck, we had some bad luck, and we went up against some really strong competition. But we came away with the overall win. So, bottom line, on that day at that track, we were the best team.”