Abu Dhabi's Khalid Al Qubaisi will once again be leading a line-up of superstars as one of three teams representing the Emirates at the 2012 Dunlop 24 hours of Dubai
Al Qubaisi’s teammates will be Porsche Supercup star Sean Edwards, and German Carrera Cup Champions and DTM Jeroen Bleekemolen and Thomas Jäger.
This will be Al Qubaisi’s second time at a 24 hour race. Last year’s maiden drive at the Autodrome left his team in fourth place after an unexpected broken drive shaft robbed them from a chance at the podium.
Al Qubaisi remains positive about his team’s chances this time around, comments, “We are once again shooting for the win. We have one of the best car and driver line-ups out there and all we need is to stay away from trouble and technical gremlins.”
The team will be driving the Mercedes SLS AMG GT3 at this year’s race, a car renowned for its speed and top of the line German engineering. Thomas Jäger, one of the drivers, who has helped Mercedes AMG in developing the SLS AMG GT3, commented:”in 2011 we started the SLS’s development and it was very successful because we won the 4 hours race at the Nurbugring in Germany. In the same year, we had more than 25 victories. Hopefully we'll improve this year on last year’s 3rd place win at the Dubai 24 hour race.”
Sean Edwards echoes Al Qubaisi’s passion to dominate the podium, “I look forward to driving the SLS for the first time in Dubai. We definitely have one of the strongest driver line-ups and teams there, so our sole aim is to win the race. Obviously 24 hours is long and anything can happen, but we just have to stay out of trouble, have some luck, and we will be fighting for the win.”
His teammate, and DTM veteran, Jeroen Bleekemolen, added, “I'm really looking forward to the Dubai 24 hours. With some small problems in 2011 we still finished 4th. In 2008 I nearly won this race, finishing 2nd overall, so I'm highly motivated to go one better. We have a very strong driver line up and a great team behind us. If we can stay trouble-free during the race we should be one of the favorites to win.”
Months of strategically complex preparation have preceded this year’s race, including rigorous fitness regimens to ensure that Al Qubaisi and his team mates are in top shape for the event. Twenty four hour races are infamous for the levels of endurance and fitness required, and as Al Qubaisi will be sleeping in one hour blocks, if at all, going into the race with high energy levels is paramount to success.
Team Abu Dhabi is strongly backed by German heavyweights Black Falcon which are no strangers to the 24 hour race themselves, having achieved top results in the 24H SPA, the 24H Nurburgring as well as the Dubai 24 hour in which they have participated 7 times in the past years.
