Valentino Rossi returns to the podium
Valentino Rossi, results
Valentino Rossi earned a well-deserved second place at the 12 Hours of the Gulf, the last race of the 2023 season of the Intercontinental GT Challenge, which was held at the Yas Marina circuit in Abu Dhabi. The Doctor took the wheel of the Wrt-prepared #46 Bmw M4 GT3, along with fellow official Bmw teammates Dries Vanthoor and Nick Yelloly.
Rossi finished the endurance race behind the GruppeM team’s Mercedes-Amg GT3, driven by Mikael Grenier, Luca Stolz and Maro Engel, with a gap of just over 12 seconds. Fabian Schiller, Maximilian Götz and Jules Gounon finished the race in third place, with Gounon winning the championship. Rossi’s performance once again demonstrates his driving skills and competitiveness in a world-class grand touring championship.
The race è started with 24 GT3-class cars, distinguishable only by driver classification. After a hectic start, marked by some accidents and the reporting of full course yellow in the first hours of the race, the situation saw cars with crews made up of experienced professionals prevail. The #46 car è contended for the lead with the #99 Mercedes of GruppeM and #14 of 2 Seas Motorsport: the latter held the lead until halfway through the race, when a safety car in the eighth hour allowed Valentino Rossi to take the lead. The Italian driver è was able to maintain the lead until the driver change with Nick Yelloly, when a pedal problem allowed GruppeM’s Mercedes to retake the lead. In the last two hours of the race, Dries Vanthoor tried to catch up with Engel, but the difference of just over ten seconds did not allow the team to reach the top, thus forcing it into second place.
The competition featured not only crews competing for the overall classification, but also two different subcategories: the Pro-Am, reserved for mixed crews of professionals and amateurs, and the Am, intended for those competing solely with amateur drivers. The title of winner in the Pro-Am class è was awarded to Optimum Motorsport’s #27 McLaren 720S, driven masterfully by Mark Radcliffe, Ollie Millroy and Rob Bell, which took sixth place overall. Kessel Racing’s #11 Ferrari 296 (Dias Perera-Roda-Andrews-Fumanelli) and Herberth Motorsport’s #33 Porsche (Au-Heinemann-Cairoli) finished second and third, respectively, in this category. Car Collection Motorsport’s #21 Porsche triumphed in the Am category, with Dustin Blattner, Constantin Dressler and Joel Sturm dominating the race, finishing fifth overall and leading the competition for much of the early stages. In second place was the #3 Mercedes of 2 Seas Motorsport (Loggie-Al Khalifa-Al Zubair) while in third was the #7 Porsche of Herberth Motorsport (Bohn-Allemann-Renauer).
