Reliability proved the downfall as GT outfit MRS suffered a long night at the 2011 Dubai 24 Hours Race. Their international driver line up, William Langhorne, Matt Halliday, Yadel Oskan and Francesco Catellacci , finished in 14th place, after a spate of mechanical woes hit their Porsche 911 GT3 R.
The first six hours ran smoothly for the team, but a broken exhaust manifold forced the number 16 into the pits for a 35 minute repair job. Once back out on track, the team began to catch up the time lost, but only a few hours later were forced to pit again, with a broken driveshaft causing another 25 minute delay. The pitstops meant the team were unable to fight for the class win, but still came home as the second fastest Porsche GT3 R, with Halliday in particular impressing with a strong stint in the morning.
Team Chief, Karsten Molitor commented on the race, saying: “We are really disappointed about the fact that the car did not last and we are sharing this fate with almost every other Porsche team operating a GT3 R. Due to the broken exhaust manifold, two cars even caught fire. From this point of view, we even were lucky! Here, the manufacturer's action is strongly needed. It can't be real, being brought about the fruits of our labour like this.
“The whole team performed excellently and accurately, this weekend. Strategy and pit stops were perfect and under regular circumstances we would have been able to compete for the overall victory. Although the extensive repair work had been accomplished within record time, hunting for positions did not make sense that much anymore – Especially because competitors had been completing their turns really reliably.
“It is hard to find anything positive, but after all we showed as a team, not having unlearned how to do long distance races and we will definitively continue from this point.”
