Dunlop Dubai 24 Hours – Hour 11 Report
No Change

The battle at the head of the field continued apace, with Maximilian Buhk now filling the driver’s seat in the second-placed #6 Mercedes.

Optimum Motorsport’s Joe Osborne was talking to John Hindhaugh on Radio Le Mans about his car’s fight-back to the lead of SP3 when he had the unfortunate experience of seeing his car drive into the garage. The reason for the stop is currently unknown, but it turned out to be a lengthy one; 16 minutes in all.

00:24 (Blimey, it’s Saturday already!) – Stuart Hall brings the already much-delayed #9 Gulf Racing Lamborghini slowly down the pitlane.

The #2 Ferrari is officially retired after succumbing to its various ailments. This means that the top three qualifiers have now retired, and leaves the race Ferrari-less.

The class leads are as follows after 10.5 hours:

A6 – 1 lap
SP2 – 4 laps
SP3 – 53 seconds
A2 – 6 laps
A5 – 19 laps
997 – 5 laps

We’ve still got almost six hours of darkness to go.

00:37 Joe Osborne reports that his Ginetta pitted to have rear suspension damage repaired. Amazingly, the assailant was the same Porsche as earlier in the race.

00:45 The car that refuses to die – the #123 Saker – returns to the track. It is officially currently in 69th place, nine laps behind the #87 Galotti Suzuki Swift; which itself has completed 117 laps after not joining in until several hours of the race had been completed.

The SP2-leading Megane is rapidly falling towards the clutches of the #110 Gutroff Corvette as it sits in its garage undergoing repairs. The sight of its driver running down the pitlane and into another garage with several mechanics chasing after him suggests that he may have a thing or two to discuss with another driver.

Bleekemolen is circulating at around the 2:10 mark, while Buhk is three seconds quicker. The gap is 86 seconds at the top of the hour.