GENNEP (May 15th, 2013) – No less than 50 teams have already signed up to compete in the ninth running of the Dunlop 24H DUBAI, January 9th till 11th, 2014. Once again, this shows the steadily increasing popularity and status of the Dunlop 24H DUBAI as the first international endurance race of the new year for GTs, touring cars and 24H Specials. Speaking on behalf of Dutch agency CREVENTIC, inventors and, together with DNRT, organisers of the Dunlop 24H DUBAI, Gerrie Willems says: “Having such a big and international entry this early in the year already is really great.” A special entry fee including transportation of 5,000 Euros for touring cars with engines up to 2000 cc was also received with enthusiasm by teams as many touring car teams have already signed up. “This allows us to keep a good mix of GTs and touring cars”, says Willems.
Referring to the slogan “never change a winning team”: Class structures maintained For the 2014 Dunlop 24H DUBAI, and also for this year’s 24H BARCELONA (September 6th-8th), the clear and proven class structures have been maintained. This means that, once again, all Porsche 997 Cup cars built from 2007 till 2013 are eligible to run in the Porsche 997 Cup category. While the latest models compete with the factory-standard 90 litres fuel tank, the older models can gain from a 120 litres tank, allowing them to do longer stints between two fuel stops.
The class structure for touring cars also remains unchanged. Gerrie Willems says: “Contrarily to what people often think, the participation of touring cars is still big and has stabilised over the last years. For instance, we had 30 touring cars on the grid in Dubai this year. A good example is the diesel class, which remains ideally suited for endurance racing events. Moreover, with ten cars, the touring car class for cars with petrol engines up to 2000cc (e.g. Clio’s and Mini’s) is still attractive and competitive. To keep participation in the Dunlop 24H DUBAI attractive for touring car teams, the successful special offer for touring cars up to 2000cc, with or without turbocharged engines, with a reduced entry fee of 5,000 Euros will be continued.”
Successful A6-Pro and A6-Am class concept in GT3 will be continued For this year’s Dunlop 24H DUBAI, the A6 class was split into a Pro and an Am category for the first time. This decision turned out to be successful: professional drivers were excited about the new rules, which allowed them to race flat-out all the way, resulting into strong competition in the A6-Pro class. The amateur and gentlemen drivers in the A6-Am class were even more thrilled, because they had two challenges, firstly to win the A6-Am class and thus becoming the overall amateur winner of the Dunlop 24H DUBAI, and secondly to have a good battle with the pros, thanks to the effective ‘balance of performance’. The Swiss Fach Auto Tech team finishing fourth overall as the winners of the A6-Am class clearly testified this.
Special classes SP2 and SP3 Teams with a touring, silhouette or GT car that doesn’t fit into one of the existing touring cars or GT classes find a field to compete in SP2 or SP3. As there are many special cars, these classes have become very popular with a total of 20 cars. SP3 is for cars to GT4 regulations or machines with similar performance while the SP2 class has a performance level just underneath GT3.
Almost 2,500 hours of TV-coverage in 2013, of which 800 hours LIVE. The 2013 running of the Dunlop 24H DUBAI got a total of almost 2,500 hours of TV coverage on stations all over the world, including a total of 800 hours of live coverage. Next to this significant amount of TV-coverage the number of listeners to the live broadcasts from Radio Show Limited, the people behind Radio Le Mans, increased significantly. For the upcoming ninth edition of Dunlop 24H DUBAI, Radio Show Limited’s expert crew will again be on board, while live-TV is also scheduled once more.