DKR Engineering Wins Abu Dhabi Finale – and Secures Le Mans Invite As Champions
DKR Engineering snatched a sudden victory in the 2023 Asian Le Mans Series finale in Yas Marina Circuit, and with it, secured an automatic invitation into the centennial running of the 24 Hours of Le Mans as LMP2 Champions.
Charlie Eastwood drove DKR Engineering’s #3 Oreca LMP2 07 – one of the oldest examples of the car still in service – to the chequered flag, together with his Turkish co-drivers Salih Yoluç and Ayhancan Guven, each claiming an emotional victory after the devastation left in the wake of the Great Kahramanmaras earthquake.
Eastwood was due to finish second in this race, but a heartbreaking gearbox problem for the #43 Inter Europol Competition Oreca (Charles Crews/Christian Bogle/Nolan Siegel) denied them their second win of the season with 15 minutes to go.
Luxembourg’s DKR Engineering will be automatically invited to Le Mans for the second time.
The remainder of the LMP2 podium in the 4 Hours of Abu Dhabi Race 2 was completed by the #98 99 Racing Oreca featuring Ahmad al-Harthy and Neel Jani in second, and the #37 COOL Racing Oreca of Alexandre Coigny and Malthe Jakobsen in third despite multiple penalties including a drive-through for avoidable contact and a one-second penalty stop for not meeting the three regulation 100 second pit times.
The #8 Graff Racing Ligier JS P320 of Fabrice Rossello, Xavier Lloveras, and François Heriau drove on to a dominant victory in the LMP3 class – and in the final minutes of the race, they realized they had won the championship thanks to a decisive move for second place!
Marcos Siebert in the #17 COOL Racing Ligier overtook Jerome de Sadeleer in the #29 MV2S Racing Ligier around the outside of turn six, demoting MV2S Racing to third place in class.
There was some confusion with the television graphics at the end – but both Graff Racing and MV2S Racing finished the season tied on 73 points and one win each. Graff Racing’s two second-place finishes have given them the LMP3 Drivers’ and Teams’ Championships on the second tiebreaker!
Siebert, Cedric Oltramare, and Adrien Chila finished in second, ahead of De Sadeleer, Viacheslav Gutak, and Fabien Lavergne in third, losing out on their first Le Mans invite in devastating fashion after a drive time calculation error.
The #7 Haupt Racing Team Mercedes-AMG GT3 of Al Faisal al Zubair, Luca Stolz, and Martin Konrad completed a dominant GT class win to complete a sweep of the Abu Dhabi weekend – doing all that they could do to try and win the title.
But in the end, with a second-place finish after a conservative start to the race, the #34 Walkenhorst Motorsport BMW M4 GT3 of Chandler Hull, Nicky Catsburg, and eleventh-hour substitute Thomas Merrill won the GT Drivers’ and Teams’ Championships – giving the longtime BMW squad their very first berth into Le Mans!
The #10 GetSpeed Mercedes of Raffaele Marciello, Fabian Schiller, and Florian Scholze finished third even after two drive-through penalties for track limits infringements.
Results to follow
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