The Dunlop Dubai 24 Hours Analysed - By Paul Truswell

The attached table provides an analysis of the results of the Dubai 24 hours. For the sake of simplicity, I only look at class A6 (aka GT3). As readers are probably aware, each car in the class had a “minimum reference lap time”, quicker than which they were not supposed to lap. If they did, they were allowed ten “Escape Jokers”; but after ten, a drive through penalty was applied.

The table shows how many Jokers were needed by each team, and then measures how many laps (excluding the Joker laps), were within 1% of the reference time. This is then compared with the total number of (non-Joker) laps completed by each car, to calculate a percentage of “fast but not too fast” laps.

What the table does not show is where a car is stuck out on the circuit, and then gets a tow back to the pits before resuming its race - as happened, for example to the number 5 Schubert BMW, whose “Time in Pit” figure does not represent the true time spent being repaired.

The obvious conclusion is that, as always in this kind of racing, the car that stays out of the pits the longest, usually wins.