It is promoted by Driving Force Events, an Irish outfit, although the commercial rights are held by Motorsports Projects FZE in the UAE. It was the ninth running of the event, but I am afraid to say that it was as close to a complete waste of time as one could get. There were just 12 starters for the two-part race, and only ten made it to the second six-hour portion (which started after a mere two-hour break).
Amazingly, all 12 hours of racing happened without any intervention – no safety cars, no full course yellows, no code-60 periods.
The winning McLaren, entered by the Anglo-Bahraini 2 Seas Motorsport team, led all but 14 of the 341 laps completed, and only five changes of lead occurred on the overall lap chart. From the outside, it wasn’t particularly nail-biting, but the team found the McLaren a fragile beast, needing a lot of care and attention, so the team deserves recognition for their result. The other two GT3 McLarens entered both retired. Optimistically, the organisers have announced that they are planning to return to Yas Marina on December 18th for the tenth edition of the event – I just hope it gets a bigger entry and a better race. If not, then I just hope that people realise that there is a limit to this kind of racing.
I was hoping for more excitement from the Dubai 24-hours the following weekend and there was a good entry list with 51 cars taking the start. It was a race with some poignancy for me on a personal level, since last year’s race at the Dubai Autodrome was the last race at which I had actually been present. The race had also an element of unfinished business about it, as heavy rain caused its abandonment after just seven hours.
In 2020, I had elected to take up an offer from the Red Camel team to work in their pit garage, assisting with strategy, rather than my usual role in the commentary box, so I experienced the rising water levels in the pit lane at first hand. In the end, I was not on the commentary team for this year’s race either, but followed the race in its various classes quite closely nevertheless. And as always, it was the races in the classes that held much of the interest.
Sadly, more than four hours were lost to a total of 16 Code-60 periods, and teams had to be on their toes to make the correct strategic calls. In the GT3 class, it was one such – after just under five hours of racing – when the GPX Porsche managed to make a break and establish a lap of a lead, which proved impossible for anyone else to get back. You can argue whether an IMSA-style Full Course Yellow, which allows cars to catch back up onto the lead lap, is better; personally, I find the Creventic way purer, even if can be disheartening for those involved. In any case, as an advertisement for close racing and for a well-matched Balance of Performance, the Dubai 24 hours was hard to fault – the top four at the finish comprising Porsche, Audi, Mercedes and Lamborghini.
The third of the ‘Middle East trio’ was, unfortunately, another second-rate affair – a one-off six-hour race organised by Creventic, with only 14 starters – only four of which were GT3 cars. The fastest was also the least reliable, Inception Racing by Optimum unable to overcome the delicate nature of their McLaren 720S GT3 leaving an unequal duel between Car Collection’s Audi and Leipert’s Lamborghini Huracan Super Trofeo from which the more powerful Audi came out on top.
It was disappointing that neither the Gulf 12 hours nor Creventic’s one-off 6-hour race at Abu Dhabi could muster a larger grid, and surely the coronavirus pandemic had a lot to do with that, but there is ‘writing on the wall’ here, that organisers ignore at their peril. I recognise that a well-promoted, skilfully-organised race meeting will always work better for the gentleman racer than a track day, but too many garden parties spoil the allure.
Anyway, to round off January came a staple of the calendar, in the shape of the Daytona 24 hours, which by all accounts was a right humdinger of a race. While Daytona may not have quite the history of Le Mans or Spa, it does have a heritage to which none of the Middle East circuits can aspire and last year’s event – probably one of the last international races to take place before we became engulfed by the cloud of the global coronavirus pandemic – ran to a record distance of 833 laps.
I wasn’t there, nor did I pay particular attention to the race as it happened – I find watching races remotely on TV difficult. I’m not sure why that is: if I am at an event, my attention rarely wanders from the racing action on the track, but when I am not there I just get distracted by the slightest of things. So even if I didn’t tune in to my colleagues who were describing the action for radiolemans.com, I did have all the data from the race available at my fingertips.
Some of that data makes interesting reading, and I thought I might share it here. Readers may be familiar with the concept of “rising averages”, but for those who are not, as I have not discussed them a length on this blog before, here is a brief explanation. There are different ways to comparing lap times from different cars. Most commonly, I look at the average of the best 20% of lap times from a car or a driver as it gives a good indication of outright pace.
However, by its very nature, it ignores 80% of the laps, which means that important things can get missed. The concept of a rising average looks at the average of three consecutive laps, and then sorts that average into ascending order.
For the (relatively small) DPi entry at Daytona, I have done this for all the cars entered. You probably need to enlarge the graph, but when you do, it is plain to see how the vast majority of the quickest laps were done by the no. 01 Cadillac from Chip Ganassi’s stable. In fact, for much of the race, the winning Wayne Taylor Acura was only the third-fastest car out there, behind the no. 48 Cadillac as well. But then Wayne has a huge amount of experience (both as a driver and a team entrant) and knows what it takes to win Daytona (this was the third year in a row that one of his cars has won the race). And one of the main things to do is to keep the car out of the pits, which the CGR team clearly failed to do in the final stages of the race.
The other interesting use of the rising average graph is to tell you which of your drivers are really performing. To round this off, let’s try looking at the rising averages, split by driver, for the three podium cars.
I will leave the reader to draw their own conclusions. But if any evidence were needed of the standout performances of Kamui Kobayashi and Harry Tincknell, then this is it. And if I were Wayne Taylor, I would be making sure I kept Felipe Albuquerque in my driving line-up.
Harry Tincknell, of course, was part of the three-man Mazda crew in the no. 55 car. That car came from being three laps behind at one point, but which was able to use the FCY procedures to get back onto the lead lap and even be challenging for the lead at one stage. Rather different from Dubai, but one plays to the rulebook that is in force and it is foolish not to take advantage of its provisions.
