Land Motorsport wins Toyo Tires

Dubai: The Land Motorsport Porsche 2 team yesterday won the 2009 Toyo Tires 24 Hours of Dubai, narrowly beating Saudi Arabian Al Faisal Racing BMW at the Autodrome.

The event, which was run under the patronage of Shaikh Hamdan Bin Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai, was hailed a huge success.

The last two hours witnessed a titanic battle between the Al Faisal Racing BMW (Prince Abdul Aziz Al Faisal, Paul Spooner, Claudia Huertgen and Stan Sorlie) and Land Motorsport Porsche 2 (Carsten Tilke, Gabriel Abergel, Niclas Kenberich and Andzej Dzikevic).

The BMW team, who were running in a lower class than the more powerful Porsches, had led through most of the early morning and going into the final four hours, seemingly on track to score a sensational victory over a formidable Porsche onslaught on the top 10 positions.

Mandatory pit stops relegated the Saudi team to fourth with a couple of hours remaining.

Huertgen drove arguably the best single stint of the race, and started to carve her way towards the fore, but failed to catch the winners by less than half a lap.

From the start of the race, which was flagged off by FIA vice president and ATCUAE president Mohammad Bin Sulayem at 2pm on Friday, the lead was shared by several teams with the German team Land Motorsport Porsche 1 and Italy's Autorlando Sport Porsche entries setting the early pace prior to the first pit stops.