GT Academy Drivers Score Dubai Podium
The GT Academy team has once again scored a podium finish in the season opening Dubai 24 Hours, bettering last year‘s finish by one place.
Having qualified the two cars 1st and 2nd in class at the hands of Lucas Ordoñez and Alex Buncombe, the Academy teams ran well for much of the first quarter of the race, before endurance racing threw its malevolent dice. Car #147, taken by Buncombe to a class lead, sustained significant damage in a collision during Sabine Schmitz’s stint, while the #127 car was, bizarrely, hit by a wheel that fell off a BMW ahead of it, damaging the bumper and fortunately not the screen or Wolfgang Reip. While the latter took nearly an hour to sort and dropped the car to 9th in class, the #147 370Z was unfortunately immobile for a total of nearly 4 hours, ending its hopes of a good finish.
Despite the time loss from this and other associated mechanical woes – changing a broken damper at 9am and the entire differential 2 hours from the end – German Academy winner Peter Pyzera, US winner Steve Doherty, Schmitz and Buncombe managed to get home 9th in class and 43rd overall after 456 laps, with Doherty taking the chequered flag.
Aside from tyres and brakes, the #127 RJN Motorsport Nismo 370Z had a far less troubled race. European winner Reip, Russian winner Mark Shulzhitskiy, Ordoñez and Roman Rusinov made up all but four of the laps that they’d lost in the repairs to finish 2nd in class and 21st overall after 543 laps.
GTPlanet offers congratulations to the GT Academy and RJN Motorsport teams for another succcessful Dubai 24 Hours!
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Newest comments are displayed first.
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January 13th, 2013 at 11:23 pm - #magsolid
Just why couldn’t they ever get a pole finish?
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January 13th, 2013 at 8:39 am - #Spazmaticality
GOOD freaking job!
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January 12th, 2013 at 7:08 pm - #infamousphil
Congradulations!!! How do I view these races? ;)
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January 12th, 2013 at 8:07 pm - #R1600Turbo
There was a post last week with links to a live stream, and there’s also a thread started by myself in the Motorsports section with the same info. Was kind of hard to miss.
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January 14th, 2013 at 7:42 am - #infamousphil
Right on R1600… Thanks for the heads-up. Solid posting
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January 12th, 2013 at 5:25 pm - #Pandulce1
From video games to real life racing. That’s just fantastic.
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January 12th, 2013 at 7:20 pm - #infamousphil
Any other game genre do this wanna be to reality?
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January 12th, 2013 at 5:19 pm - #ZedMan1996
Great work lads! We are all so proud of you lot!
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January 12th, 2013 at 4:14 pm - #xero0083
Nice
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January 12th, 2013 at 4:02 pm - #CyKosis1973
Bravo, well done folks. Impressed and proud in equal measures…
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January 12th, 2013 at 3:35 pm - #tka_tha
Congratulations! Well done.
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January 12th, 2013 at 1:27 pm - #R1600Turbo
I thought the wheel they hit was off of a Ferrari?
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January 12th, 2013 at 11:01 am - #TokoTurismo
Congrats guys! :D
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January 12th, 2013 at 11:45 am - #Mac K
Congrats!
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January 12th, 2013 at 9:44 am - #JeremiahTB
Hit by a wheel and still takes home a second place finish…nice.
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January 12th, 2013 at 9:14 am - #buraspo
Nice
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January 12th, 2013 at 8:33 am - #Shoe67
That is a great finish. Congrats :)
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January 12th, 2013 at 5:52 am - #Dionisiy
Great result car number 127! Russian drivers Mark Shulzhitskiy and Roman Rusinov are the best! Hooray!
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January 12th, 2013 at 5:50 am - #sangdude82
Well done guys :)
GTPlanet on Google+
“….hit by a wheel….”
And that folks, is why Lancias never caught on in racing.
(This is referencing the TG episode where they drove a Lancia, and it fell apart as they were driving it. Quite comical, really.)