Spirit of Race’s leading #5 Ferrari 458 Italia clocked the quickest laptime on the first free practice session of the Dubai 24 Hours on Dubai Autodrome this morning. Driver Alexander Talkanitsa Jr. lapped the circuit in 2:00.233, around 0.6 seconds quicker than GT Corse’s Ferrari 458 Italia which came in second.
Fach Auto Tech’s Porsche 997 GT3 R was third quickest (2:00.903), followed by Walkenhorst Motorsport’s BMW Z4 GT3 (2:01.094) in fourth and the two Aston Martin Vantage GT3s of Craft Racing AMR in fifth and sixth positions respectively.
The practice session was halted after GC Racing’s BMW 1 Series caught fire on track, causing a red flag; track action resumed 20 minutes later.
Team Abu Dhabi by Black Falcon #1 Mercedes SLS AMG GT3 was down in 10th position behind SX Team Schubert’s BMW Z4 GT3, while its sister #2 Mercedes settled for 13th place. Team Black Falcon, last year’s winner, remains the biggest victory contender on Saturday.
Free Practice 2 is scheduled to start at 13:15 PM (GMT+4), followed by three qualifying sessions, the first of which gets underway at 15:00 (GMT+4).