Sixteen TCR cars to compete in the 24H Dubai
The 24-hour race at the Dubai Autodrome will take place this week, from Thursday 9 to Saturday 11. The competition, held for the 15th consecutive year, has become a traditional opener to the car racing international season and will count as first round of the 2020 24H Series Continents Championship.
Sixteen teams will race in the TCR class and promise to deliver a thrilling fight for victory.
Last year’s winner and reigning champion Autorama Motorsport by Wolf Power Racing tops the list with its two Volkswagen Golf GTI cars; the Swiss team has retained only one if his 2019 regular drivers, Yannick Mettler who had clinched last year’s Drivers’ title together with Jerôme Ogay. Two other Golf cars have been entered by Sweden-based Lestrup Racing; the team’s line up includes Hannes Morin who comes from a brilliant rookie season in TCR Scandinavia.
Six CUPRA cars form the largest contingent in the class. 2019 TCR Spa 500 winner Red Camel-Jordans.nl is among the top seeds, together with the Bas Koeten Racing-run cars of TopCar Sports and NKPP Racing. The former will be driven by a very experienced quartet formed by Antti Buri, Fabian Danz, Julien Apothéloz and Kari-Pekka Laaksonen. The last three CUPRA cars are entered by Atech Racing, Zengő Motorsport and BBR; the latter features an-all Thai line-up that includes TCR experts Munkong Sathienthirakul, Kantadhee Kusiri and Chariya Nuya.
Audi is represented by four RS 3 LMS cars. The most competitive of them appears to be the AC Motorsport entry with Stéphane Perrin, Gilles Magnus and Vincent Radermecker. QSR Racing, Bonk Motorsport and Team Dynamics Motorsport will run the other three cars.
The field is completed by the Nordschleife Racing Peugeot 308 and the KC Motorsport Group Honda Civic Type R. A quintet of experienced Hong Kongers will share driving duties in the Honda: Paul Ip, Andy Yan, Jim Ka To, Kenneth Ma and Henry Lee.
The race will start Friday at 15:00 local time (11:00 GMT/12:00 CET) and will be streamed live at www.24hseries.com.
Photo: Creventic
