Hankook delivered superb tire performance at Hankook 24H Dubai

Hankook Tire has marked its debut as title sponsor and exclusive tire partner of the Hankook 24H Dubai on January 8th – 10th, 2015, as the curtain raiser for the FIA 24H SERIES powered by Hankook Tire. This official championship, taking place across six venues, is the world’s only endurance series to feature three 24-hour events on its race calendar.
 
Of the 89 vehicles lined up on the grid on Saturday, January 10th, Team Black Falcon 2 from Germany emerged as the winner of Hankook 24H Dubai 2015. After clocking up 604 laps and 3,260.996 km (2,026.289 miles), final driver Oliver Webb in car number 2 – a Mercedes SLS AMG GT3 – was the first to cross the line ahead of his fellow Mercedes driver Adam Christodoulou of Britain’s Team Ram Racing (car number 30). Taking third place was the Dragon Racing 1 team (United Arab Emirates, car number 88), with Jordan Grogor completing the final stint behind the wheel of the Ferrari 458 Italia GT3. The fastest lap driven in the Dubai Autodrome – at 1:59.545 minutes – was recorded by Stefan Mücke (Aston Martin Vantage GT3), who finished fourth with his team KPM Racing 1.
 
Manfred Sandbichler, Hankook Tire’s Motorsport Director Europe said “It was a superb event. The organizers Creventic did a fantastic job, as did the teams. Our tires came in for undiluted praise and everyone was more than satisfied, from the smallest to the biggest teams.” He also added “Although our Ventus race slicks featured a standardized compound, the huge temperature fluctuations between day and night had no impact at all. The tire impressed everyone with its high performance and consistency as well as maximum safety. We are already looking forward to the Hankook 24H Dubai next year. At our premiere here as title sponsor and tire partner, we came as guests and now return home as friends.”
 
Hankook Tire’s Race Engineer Christophe Stucki said “All the teams sang the praises of the Hankook Tire and many of them were able to do double stints with no drop-off in the performance of the slicks. Running on our tires, the Porsche teams were up to two seconds faster than last year. Even with track temperatures rising to 40 degrees, there was hardly any wear and less abrasion. The track was significantly cleaner than even a year ago, where you had whole lumps of rubber from the tires swirling around and in some cases damaging the windscreens of the cars. With Dubai being a right-hand course, the left tires take most of the strain. But our Hankook Tire slicks took even that in their stride.”
 
The next stop for the FIA-recognized long-distance series is Mugello, Italy, on March 13 and 14, 2015.