Hankook 24H DUBAI 2023 GT3 preview 24.12.2022: Hankook 24H DUBAI 24h Series, Round 1 13-14-15 January 2023 • MotoGP G.O.A.T. Valentino Rossi to make 24H SERIES debut with Team WRT. • 2022 winners Dries Vanthoor, Mohammed Saud Fahad Al Saud and Axcil Jefferies aiming for another win. •

Hankook 24H DUBAI
24h Series, Round 1
13-14-15 January 2023




•    MotoGP G.O.A.T. Valentino Rossi to make 24H SERIES debut with Team WRT.

•    2022 winners Dries Vanthoor, Mohammed Saud Fahad Al Saud and Axcil Jefferies aiming for another win.

•    2017 World Endurance Champion Earl Bamber makes maiden 24H SERIES outing with Grove Racing.
 



Reigning European Trophy GT winner Phoenix Racing (#1) will hope to start its 2023 season with a strong result in Dubai, and has confirmed 2022 GT Drivers’ ‘European’ champions Michael Doppelmayr, Pierre Kaffer and Elia Erhart will be joined by Christer Jöns, who finished on the overall GT podium in 2016.
 


Newly-crowned Continents Trophy GT winner CP Racing (#85) has also confirmed its attendance, and will hope to emulate its GT3-AM win with former Overall GT Drivers’ champions Charles Putman, Charles Espenlaub and Joe Foster, and Daytona 24 Hours class winner Shane Lewis. The American quartet will be joined by Britain’s Philip Quaife, who will be looking for his sixth class win at the Hankook 24H DUBAI on his 14th entry
 


Two-time event winner Team WRT boasts one of the most scintillating driver line-ups in the first race for its new BMW M4 GT3s. Seven-time 500cc / MotoGP world champion Valentino Rossi will make his 24H SERIES debut aboard the team’s #46 M4 alongside Sean Gelael, Tim Whale, and 2016 Spa 24 Hours winner Maxime Martin. In the sister #7 BMW, 2022 Hankook 24H DUBAI winners Dries Vanthoor and Mohammed Saud Fahad Al Saud return for their second attempts at victory alongside Jean-Baptiste Simmenauer, with two further drivers for each car to be confirmed in due course.
 


The eponymous team of three-time Hankook 24H DUBAI winner Hubert Haupt – Haupt Racing Team – will look to emulate its class win and overall podium at the 2021 edition. The team boss will compete alongside fellow three-time winner (and the UAE’s own) Khaled Al Qubaisi, Sébastian Baud and two-time Spa 24 Hours winner, Jules Gounon.
 


Back for its second Hankook 24H DUBAI outing in affiliation with Haupt Racing Team, Al Manar Racing (#777) will hope to improve on its 5th place overall in 2022. Mercedes-AMG factory driver Luca Stolz will be joined in the Omani team’s Mercedes-AMG GT3 by Al Faisal Al Zubair, Fabian Schiller, Martin Konrad, and Zimbabwe’s Axcil Jefferies. The latter will be gunning for his third overall event win in 2023.
 


2017 Hankook 24H DUBAI winner Herberth Motorsport has confirmed its traditional #91 Porsche 911 GT3 Cup for team principals Alfred and Robert Renauer, Daniel Allemann and Ralf Bohn. The Bavarian team has also registered a second Porsche (#92) for GT4 America frontrunners Jason Hart, Adam Adelson, Seth Lucas, and Elliot Skeer.
 


Visiom is set to compete in its first Hankook 24H DUBAI since 2014, and will do so with the sole Ferrari 488 GT3 on the grid. Team owner Jean-Paul Pagny, an A5-class winner in 2012, will partner with French countrymen Jean-Bernard Bouvet, David Hallyday, Christophe Tinseau, and 1998 24 Hours of Le Mans winner Stéphane Ortelli.
 


A TCE regular, Belgium’s Mathieu Detry will take on the Hankook 24H DUBAI alongside 2020 Bathurst 12 Hours winner Maxime Soulet and Olivier Bertels in an Audi R8 LMS GT3 entered by Antigua and Barbuda’s HAAS RT (#21). Heading to the UAE in January from similarly further afield, Australia’s Grove Racing (#10) will team Grove father-and-son Stephen and Brenton, Australian Supercars race winner Anton De Pasquale, and two-time World Endurance Champion Earl Bamber.
 


Denmark’s Poulsen Motorsport (#14) impressed on its series return at the 2022 Hankook 24H BARCELONA – its first series start in eight years – and will hope for an equally successful run in the UAE with team bosses Kristian and Roland Poulsen, Kasper H. Jensen and Gustav Birch. Pure Rxcing (#911) is set to make its series debut with Porsche factory driver Sven Müller confirmed alongside Joel Sturm, Alex Malykhin and British young gun, Harry King.
 


Jesse and Daan van Kuijk, Max van Splunteren and Lucas Groeneveld will look to put a luckless run at the Hankook 12H KUWAIT behind Team GP-Elite (#32) in Dubai with the Dutch team’s Porsche 911 GT3 R. Compatriot Jaap van Lagen meanwhile spearheads an all-Dutch driver line-up for 2022 GT3-Pro/Am class winner MP Motorsport alongside Henk and Daniel de Jong, and Bert de Heus.
 


Back for its first series outing since the 2022 Hankook 6H ABU DHABI, Saalocin by Kox Racing (#48) features team principal – and former Le Mans class winner – Peter Kox alongside his daughter Stéphane, Dennis Retera and Nico Pronk aboard the team’s Porsche 911 GT3 R. Fellow returnee Saintéloc Junior Team (#26) are looking for a successful series race with Christian Kelders and Simon Gachet at the helm of the French squad’s Audi R8 LMS GT3.
 


Heart of Racing rounds out the GT3 entries thus far with its collaborative entry with former A6-Am class winner SPS performance (#27). Heart of Racing, which finished 2nd in GT4 this past January, will partner team principal Ian James with team regulars Roman De Angelis, Alex Riberas and Gray Newell.

 

Entries remain open for the Hankook 24H DUBAI, official on-track action for which begins with two hours of Free Practice on Friday 13 January.


This will be followed later that evening by qualifying sessions for both the GT and TCE divisions. At 15.00 hrs on Saturday 14 January, the green flag will drop for the 18th Hankook 24H DUBAI itself, with the race scheduled to run uninterrupted until 15.00 hrs on Sunday 15 January.
 


Further details can be found at www.24hseries.com. Teams interested in competing can also speak with CREVENTIC directly via info@creventic.com and/or +31 485 471166.
 




Creventic BV- also photo