A last gasp effort was all that was needed for AUH Motorsport to secure pole position ahead of tomorrow’s 24-hour race in Dubai. Long time provisional polesitters AF Corse SRL were unseated by just two-tenths of a second as the session neared its conclusion by their fellow Ferrari 458 Italia competitors, driven this weekend by Britain’s Rob Barff and Charlie Hollings, and UAE-based South Africans Leon Price and Jordon Grogor.
Difficulties at the beginning of the day for JRM Nissan were vindicated when the GT-R GT3 posted the third fastest time, courtesy of drivers Alex Buncombe, Frank Mallieux, Tom Kimber-Smith and GT1 World Champion Michael Krumm. The quartet squeaked ahead of free practice top dogs – and last year’s polesitters – Reiter Engineering, the Lamborghini Gallardo having to settle for fifth.
United Autosports continued their charge by securing top ten positions on the grid for both of their cars. The team’s lead Audi R8 – with drivers Frank Yu, Matt Bell, Mark Patterson and Roger Wills sharing seat time – will start three places behind its sister car in seventh having missed out by just over half a second. MRS GT-Racing’s Porsche 997 GT3 R splits the two after drivers Erwin Stuckle, Philipp Enge, Klaus Dieter-Fraus and William Langhorne posted the sixth fastest time.
Middle Eastern favourites Gulf Racing and Saudi Falcons by Schubert Motorsport round out the top ten. Gulf’s #9 Gallardo (with British trio Archie Hamilton, Stuart Hall and Mike Wainwright partnering Roald Goethe) and Saudi’s #5 Z4 (Sultan Al Faisal, Fahad Al Gosaibi, Bandar Alesayi and Marko Hartung’s weapon of choice this weekend) line up eighth and tenth respectively, with Rhino’s Leipert Motorsport’s #29 car sharing the fifth row courtesy of Tobias Neuser and Jean-Marc Merlin.
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