Herberth Motorsport lead home Manthey-Racing to give the Porsche 911 GT3 R a 1-2 finish the Dubai 24 Hours.
Porsche factory driver Brendon Hartley lead the team of Robert Renauer, Ralf Bohn, Daniel Allemann and Alfred Renauer to the win after leading the race for most of the second half of the race.
Factory driver Sven Muller and Porsche Young Professional Matteo Cairoli helped bring second place home with Otto Klohns and Jochen Krumbach for Manthey-Racing.
There was further good news for Porsche Young Professional driver Matthieu Jaminet as he helped secure fifth place with the French Imsa Performance squad.
Sascha Pilz, Head of GT Customer Motorsport was delighted with the latest result which saw the customer cars battle it out in a field of 92 vehicles.
“I’m very pleased with this outcome of the 911 GT3 R at the start of its second race season and proud of the performance of our customer teams. Once again, the customer vehicle has demonstrated its competitiveness in long distance racing.
“We can now look forward to the next season highlight; the Rolex 24 in Daytona.” he added.
Porsche’s LMP1 driver Brendon Hartley made his GT debut in Dubai, and will be hoping that it is a good omen for the season as he took his first 24 hour victory. “That was a great team effort from Herberth Motorsport. I only met the squad for the first time on Wednesday and I immediately felt at home.
“My first outing in a GT-Porsche was a great experience and I hope that I’ll be back again next year. I love driving the 911 GT3 RS on the road and now I’ve also fallen in love with the racing version.”
The 2017 Dubai 24H podium – Credit: Porsche AG
Sven Müller was happy with the result but admitted that it was disappointing not to be able to fight for victory in the closing stages. “To begin my first season as a Porsche works driver on the podium is fantastic. We put in a very strong team performance. Towards the end we had a puncture so we couldn’t fight for victory, but second place is more than we had expected.”
“What a great start to the season. This is my first podium result at a 24-hour race and it makes me want more.” added Cairoli.
Mathieu Jaminet echoed the thoughts of his Porsche stablemates “We didn’t make any mistakes and our 911 GT3 R ran faultlessly over the entire distance. A double victory and fifth place for us – that’s a fabulous start to the season for Porsche.”
