Black Falcons triumph in Dubai's 24-hour race

The Black Falcon Mercedes team repeated its 2012 victory in this year’s Dubai 24 Hours with Khaled Al Qubaisi, Sean Edwards, Jeroen Bleekemolen and Bernd Schneider. Khaled Al Qubaisi took the freshly rebuilt Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG GT3 across the line two laps ahead of the second-placed No. 16 AF Corse Ferrari F458 Italia of Mika Salo, for back-to-back wins in the Middle Eastern’s premier enduro. The win for Al Qubaisi and co-drivers Jeroen Bleekemolen, Sean Edwards and Bernd Schneider came following a commanding performance and equally impressive turnaround by the German squad. After making up a three-lap deficit due early on, the gull-winged beast took over the lead in the 13th hour and enjoyed a spirited fight with the No. 24 Saudi Falcons Team Schubert BMW Z4 GT3, until the 2011 race winners slipped back overnight before retiring with less than five hours to go with engine failure. The late-race misfortunes for Black Falcon’s closest competitor gave clear sailing for the No. 1 Mercedes, which ironically started the weekend as a spare car to fellow competitor, Preci-Spark, before being acquired and transformed into the eventual race-winning machine. Bleekemolen became the most successful driver in the event’s relatively short history, having shared the winning Mercedes with Edwards and Al Qubaisi last year, as well as scoring a runner-up finish in 2008. It wasn’t all clear sailing for the Silver Arrow, though, as a series of full-course cautions and penalties, put the defending race winners behind early on. Both of Saudi Falcon’s team’s 4.4-liter V8 BMW Z4 GT3s, developing in the region of 515bhp at 8,200rpm, were challenging for the leading positions early in the race but fate dictated that the team will have to wait until 2014 to achieve the goal of winning the race. The number 24 car was actually leading the race during the early hours of darkness. The Saudi Falcons Team Schubert cars were crewed by Saudi drivers Abdulaziz bin Turki Al-Faisal and Faisal Bin Laden, Austrian Dominik Baumann and the German quintet of Dominik Schwager, Dirk Adorf, Jörg Müller, Claudia Hürtgen and Dirk Müller. Abdulaziz bin Turki Al-Faisal was very competitive during his stint behind the wheel and he set some excellent lap times and matched the works drivers. The BMWs had qualified in fourth and fifth for the start of the race and Saudi Falcons Team Schubert 2 was running in a podium position for long periods and was still in contention to win the race on Saturday morning —after almost 19 hours of racing — until team driver Jörg Müller sensed something was wrong with the engine and pulled his BMW into the in-field. The disappointment came after Abdulaziz bin Turki Al-Faisal had guided the car back from third to second position during his morning stint and was only 2min 30sec away from the lead. The car was towed back to the pits by race officials and Schubert Motorsport staff set about trying to find out what had gone wrong. A problem was discovered with the oil pump and race mechanics tried in vain to get the car going again as the clock ticked down and the chance of a podium finish disappeared. Saudi Falcons Team Schubert 2 endured cruel luck. With 84 cars taking part in the race and traffic heavy on the circuit at all times, race officials decided to replace a red flag with a Code 60 ruling, meaning that drivers would have to adhere to a 60km/h speed limit during a racing incident. Dominik Schwager was running well after around 5hrs 20min of the race until a Code 60 was given and his BMW Z4 was rear-ended at speed by another car. The Z4 was badly damaged and it took a long time for team mechanics to repair the damage and get the car out on the track again. Unfortunately, after a suspension change the car retired with exhaust manifold problems that could only be rectified with lengthy work on the engine. “It is unfortunate that we didn’t finish the race,” reflected Stephan Wendl, Schubert Motorsport team manager. “We had a great line-up and our guys were doing very well. The car number 12 was hit from behind and we had to retire early in the race. Such incidents happen in motor sport. We had a very good run in car 24 and, after many changes in the set-up, we had the fastest car on the grid. We were catching the Ferrari and it was two seconds ahead of us a lap before we retired. We had an oil pump problem, so the engine stopped and we had to retire. “Both our Saudi drivers did an excellent job and I was very satisfied with their performance. Faisal didn’t have chance to show all his potential and Abdulaziz did tremendous work throughout the race.! From Arabnews