Kessel Racing roar to Gulf 12 Hours win

‘I saw the Ferrari of Black Pearl spinning in front of me and I had a big moment unable to avoid him’

The home of the Formula 1 Etihad Airways Abu Dhabi Grand Prix yesterday witnessed a day of on-track drama as 20 cars from 12 teams fought for the top spot on the podium at the fifth edition of the Gulf 12 Hours.

After a dramatic finish, Swiss-based team Kessel Racing took overall victory with the #11 Ferrari driven by Michal Broniszewski, Giancomo Piccini and Davide Rigon at Yas Marina Circuit with 301 completed laps. The Black Falcon #2 (Abdulaziz Al Faisal, Hubert Haupt, Yelmer Buurman) came home in second place with a gap of 24 seconds with Oman Racing Team in the Aston Martin #44 (Darren Turner, Ahmad Al Harthy, Johnny Adam) finishing in third on their debut on this circuit.

With only eight minutes remaining of the second part of the 12-hour period, the race was red-flagged due to a severe accident involving both Ferraris of Kessel Racing (#99) and Black Pearl Racing by Rinaldi (#38), spinning on oil coming out of the exit of Turn 3. “I saw the Ferrari of Black Pearl spinning in front of me and I had a big moment unable to avoid him”, said Michael Lyons, driver of #99. “We are glad that we are both OK since the cars are heavily damaged, but it is a crazy end to the race.”

Epic duel

From the start to the final six hours of the Gulf 12 Hours, Kessel Racing enjoyed an epic duel with both Black Falcon Mercedes SLS. The Mercedes squad were first and second at one point during the race, however, a technical issue on the Abu Dhabi Racing #1 of Khaled Al Qubaisi, Jeroen Bleekemolen and Marco Engel forced the car into the pits, losing 10 laps in total. They received a 10-second penalty for not respecting track limits in addition, resulting in a seventh place finish.

Victory in PRO-AM went to the #55 AF Corse Ferrari 458 Italia with Jack Gerber, Marco Cioci and Ilya Meinikov behind the wheel.

“It is the first time for me doing this race so the win is something very special”, said Gerber. “The fact that we actually had a fairly destroyed car after yesterday, it is incredibly satisfying to finish the race meeting on such a high, as we did not expect to be here.”