DUBAI // Two-time Dubai 24 Hours champion Khaled Al Qubaisi and his Abu Dhabi Racing Black Falcon teammates will have some catching up to do as they start the opening race of the 2016 Hankook 24H Series at the Dubai Autodrome from fifth on the grid.
It was a new Audi R8 LMS dominated Thursday’s qualifying sessions, clinching the first row and two other spots in the top six, meaning the new Mercedes-AMG GT3s of Al Qubaisi and defending overall champion Black Falcon, who will start from seventh, will have to up their pace when the race is flagged off at 2pm Friday.
“We had a good qualifying, though we are aware that the leading car is faster,” said Al Qubaisi, who will be sharing the driving duties with his two German teammates, FIA GT Cup world champion Maro Engel and Hubert Haupt, and the Dutch duo of Jeroen Bleekemolen and Indy Dontje,
“Yesterday we had a problem with weight and a smaller restrictor, but today we changed to a bigger restrictor.
“We feel we are about a second off the pace. We will see how it goes tomorrow, but we are comfortable and confident of achieving our goal.”
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The Audi R8s were distinctly quicker with Christer Jons clocking 1 minute, 57.892 seconds to clinch pole position for C. ABT Racing.
Fellow German Christopher Mies of Land-Motorsport was second-fastest in 1:58.210, just edging V8 Racing’s Nicky Pastorelli (1:28.211), whose Chevrolet Corvette had sat at the top of the time sheets for much of the qualifying session.
“For me it’s a dream,” said Jons, who will share driving duties with Andreas Weishaupt, Isaac Tutumlu, Matias Henkola and Daniel Abt. “I was fighting for pole all the time last year, so it’s nice to start the year with this. I didn’t expect to improve to a .57 at the end, so it was quite a surprise when I crossed the line.
“I had not expected to post a 1:57. Perhaps, the fact that conditions improved as the sun came down helped us as well. It was a hard and nice fight for pole.”
Belgian Audi Club Team WRT’s Laurens Vanthoor is the third Audi R8 LMS in the first two rows with a lap of 1:58.582.
Al Qubaisi’s teammate Jeroen Bleekemolen clinched fifth spot for the Abu Dhabi Racing Black Falcon with a time of 1:58.847 on his final lap.
“It was hard to find a clear lap even though we were with the fast cars,” said Bleekemolen, suggesting the traffic caused by 56 cars in that qualifying session had made it tougher for him. There were some slower cars and we found ourselves in the middle of the group. So I backed out and backed out.
“I finally found two clear laps and made no mistake. Hopefully, over the distance we can do well. At least we are not far off with these restrictors.
“I think we can sleep well tonight and prepare for tomorrow.”
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